Ashvamitra's Authentic Sanskrit Tattoo Parlor
Bringing the riches of real Sanskrit poetry to the tattoo artist's needle.
(Ashvamitra, also known as Phillip Ernest, author of The Vetala: a novel of undying love and The Far Himalaya)
This unique novel, a "Sanskrit horror-romance", is available from the publisher in physical and electronic forms:
http://www.lindaleith.com/eng/Pages/bookDetail/TheVetala
And from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Vetala-novel-undying-love-ebook/dp/B076XZ6B57/ref=sr_1_9?qid=1588344295&refinements=p_27%3APhillip+Ernest&s=books&sr=1-9&text=Phillip+Ernest
http://www.lindaleith.com/eng/Pages/bookDetail/TheVetala
And from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Vetala-novel-undying-love-ebook/dp/B076XZ6B57/ref=sr_1_9?qid=1588344295&refinements=p_27%3APhillip+Ernest&s=books&sr=1-9&text=Phillip+Ernest
My second novel, The Far Himalaya, is now also available in the same places: Linda Leith Publishing:
http://www.lindaleith.com/Pages/bookDetail/FarHimalaya
and Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Far-Himalaya-Phillip-Ernest/dp/1988130972
http://www.lindaleith.com/Pages/bookDetail/FarHimalaya
and Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Far-Himalaya-Phillip-Ernest/dp/1988130972
about this blog
A story from a past life. Back in my home city of Toronto, a former girlfriend of mine, over whom I had suffered exquisite agonies of love during and after our relationship, later hooked up with a guy who, she said, had a Sanskrit tattoo somewhere, and was avoiding me because he was terrified I'd take one look at it and reveal that he'd branded himself for life with pseudo-Sanskrit gibberish. Of course I was dying of jealousy, so this report gave me some kind of evil, vengeful gratification, I have to admit.
I never did get to see his tattoo, wherever it was. But over the years - both back in my native Canada, and in my adopted country India - I've been perplexed and distressed by the sight of supposedly Sanskrit tattoos that are grammatically and orthographically bizarrely incorrect, often to the point of meaninglessness, if they are even Sanskrit at all (often they're actually Hindi). Besides, the texts themselves are almost always translations, usually disastrously and hilariously wrong, of banal phrases from popular Western culture. This, to me, is tragic, when Sanskrit has an enormous millennia-long literature containing some of the greatest poetry and profoundest thought ever expressed. Most of it is in the form of the shloka, a poetic couplet divided into eight-syllable quarters that are the perfect length for a tattoo. With this blog, I hope to perform a double service to people who, inspired by Sanskrit's reputation as a beautiful and ancient language of poetry and wisdom, feel moved to have their bodies adorned with it in the most permanent way. First, I wish to help them select an authentic Sanskrit text that does honor to the language and to their own bodies. Second, I wish to give them a glimpse of the tremendous riches and beauties of Sanskrit poetry.
Here, I propose to build a thematically organized index of quarter-verses culled from my own daily reading of the Mahabharata, an enormous ancient epic which, in addition to telling the story of the greatest and most terrible war the world has ever seen, also contains innumerable sententious and philosophical verses.
A story from a past life. Back in my home city of Toronto, a former girlfriend of mine, over whom I had suffered exquisite agonies of love during and after our relationship, later hooked up with a guy who, she said, had a Sanskrit tattoo somewhere, and was avoiding me because he was terrified I'd take one look at it and reveal that he'd branded himself for life with pseudo-Sanskrit gibberish. Of course I was dying of jealousy, so this report gave me some kind of evil, vengeful gratification, I have to admit.
I never did get to see his tattoo, wherever it was. But over the years - both back in my native Canada, and in my adopted country India - I've been perplexed and distressed by the sight of supposedly Sanskrit tattoos that are grammatically and orthographically bizarrely incorrect, often to the point of meaninglessness, if they are even Sanskrit at all (often they're actually Hindi). Besides, the texts themselves are almost always translations, usually disastrously and hilariously wrong, of banal phrases from popular Western culture. This, to me, is tragic, when Sanskrit has an enormous millennia-long literature containing some of the greatest poetry and profoundest thought ever expressed. Most of it is in the form of the shloka, a poetic couplet divided into eight-syllable quarters that are the perfect length for a tattoo. With this blog, I hope to perform a double service to people who, inspired by Sanskrit's reputation as a beautiful and ancient language of poetry and wisdom, feel moved to have their bodies adorned with it in the most permanent way. First, I wish to help them select an authentic Sanskrit text that does honor to the language and to their own bodies. Second, I wish to give them a glimpse of the tremendous riches and beauties of Sanskrit poetry.
Here, I propose to build a thematically organized index of quarter-verses culled from my own daily reading of the Mahabharata, an enormous ancient epic which, in addition to telling the story of the greatest and most terrible war the world has ever seen, also contains innumerable sententious and philosophical verses.