Tattoos in Thailand - An Ancient Buddhist Tradition
Published: 07/20/2011 at Bruce Bart Tattoo
Nowhere else in the world, except Thailand, does the tattoo tradition have an annual religious celebration. Once a year, thousands of tattoo enthusiasts come from around the world and descend onto the temple known as Wat Bang Phra. Wat Bang Phra has a strong population of tattooed Buddhist monks who are masters of this art. The city is located 50 km outside of Bangkok and it is also known as the Temple of the Flying Tiger. Unlike most tattoos in the West, the Thai version comes steeped in spiritual or even superstitious beliefs. Many people seek out blessings especially within the fields of protection, good luck, health, and prosperity. The majority of people who arrive to these festivities are already heavily tattooed, and arrive to simply get their designs “recharged' or to have the Buddhist monks re-bless their body art.
During the festivities, it is not uncommon for the tattoo devotees, through their chanting, to reach an extremely heightened state of consciousness, appearing to enter into a trance. Everyone arrives with gifts of venerable teacher.
It's a long tradition in Thailand for soldiers to take on these protective tattoos, called Sak Yant. The belief in their powers as charms is so great that it's commonly believed that the right tattoo by the best tattoo master can stop bullets. It's not only the Buddhist designs that are potent, but the accompanying prayers. They're chanted by the monks as the nearly metre-long tattoo implements do their work. The finger of one hand directs the needle, cradling the tip almost as if it were a pool cue, while the other drives the needle up and down. The monk's wrist is a blur as he rat-a-tat-tats the needle in and out of the skin, two or three times per second. The resulting series of connected dots in the skin resemble an embroidered tapestry. Yes, the hand-tapped tattoos are painful, but it's a fair exchange if you believe that you walk away from the experience invincible.
Another technique involves the tattooist's needle penetrating the skin, after which ink is rubbed into the wound and a prayer spoken to impregnate the charm with its spiritual power.
There are hundreds of traditional Thai designs, many of them animals, the tiger being the most popular. The lower back is the preferred location for this most powerful of motifs. Taking a tiger tattoo is to take on the tiger spirit, a spirit that will be in control of your life. Angelina Jolie submitted to the classical tiger treatment at the hands of venerated tattoo master, Ajarn Noo Kanphai in 2004.
The most popular Thai tattoos depict Buddhist deities or temples. Often, the tattoo is not a recognizable image, but rather, a Thai script reproducing prayers.
Thai traditionalists would warn tattoo enthusiasts that ordinary ‘decorative' tattoos have no power to protect or bless them. Decorative tattoos, in the traditionalist's eyes, are executed using modern electric machines in the hands of tattooists with little true feeling, and consequently the tattoos lack authority and integrity. Such tattoos would have little power to act as a protective amulet or talisman or to bring good fortune to the wearer.
The art of spiritual tattooing as practiced in Thailand is one that goes back to ancient times. Like the classical Japanese tattoo masters, the Thai monks undergo the long training necessary to find that mystical place inside them where they aren't distracted. Only in that state, and working from that very still place, can the tattooist orchestrate his mind, body and heart into the necessary coordination to perform the tattoo miracle. It not only takes a monk to recite the appropriate sutra -- there are at least 108 of them -- it takes a person whose heart is purged of his own agenda and egocentricity. Only then will the tattoo be a pure design, able to answer the wearer's prayers.
Of the various Thai tattoos said to attract luck, wealth and blessings, as well as provide a measure of insurance against evil spirits, the traditional Buddhist tattoo is very popular. It's usually a geometric design based on images of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas, the Lotus or some other Buddhist symbol.
The Thai also have a Hindu Sanskrit tattoo that performs much the same function, except that it's based on Hindu gods and deities, such as the Four-faced Buddha, Hanuman the Monkey God, the Holy Eagle, the Heavenly Dog, the Thai Dharma King, and a Wealth Deity who is female. These are fearsome creatures, in the face of which most evil spirits are said to quickly retreat.
Other tattoos that one can expect luck, wealth and blessings, like the tiger, are the phoenix, lion, leopard and snake. These animals are both holy and lucky, although they are not complete as tattoos unless they are surrounded with appropriate mantras and vantras which are applied by a monk chanting the sutras.
The Golden-Tongued Bird, ‘Sha Li Ka’ is said to improve your confidence and speaking skills – which in turn can help with your interpersonal and relationship skills and is applied to the tongue – so it must be painful. Not so painful is the ‘Yuan Shen Guan Ding’ tattoo inked on the top of the back of the head and is intended to ‘flood your head with blessings to protect your soul' A tattoo's placement on the body has great significance in Thai tattooing, the closer a tattoo is to the head, where the soul is thought to reside, the greater the power a tattoo is thought to have.
Thai tattooing has adapted to modernity with typical Thai finesse and subtlety. For those who fear that their tattoos may not be well-received in an office modeled after its Western counterparts, Thais may get tattoos not with the usual tattoo inks but with sesame oil or with no pigments of any kind. The tattooing implements, the designs and the mantras are all the same. The result, for all intents and purposes, is an 'invisible' tattoo, with none of the visible stigma of a tattoo, but with all its magical powers to protect as an amulet and talisman intact.
Looking for a tattoo parlor with a whole new attitude? The friendly and ‘kick-ass’ artists at Bruce Bart Tattooing can help match you with the perfect tat. When you’re ready for some new ink, you have to look no further then Ft. Lauderdale.
