Traditional uses of the different scripts and History:
The Tibetan written language came into existence in the 7th century A.D. under the direction of King Songtsen Gampo, during his reign the translation of Buddhist Sanskrit texts into Tibetan began; with the formulation of the scripts and grammar by his minister and great scholar Thönmi Sambhota. The different script styles then developed over nine generations, when the written language evolved steadily to the 10th century furthering its preservation. By the 19th century, models of Uchen and Umeh script styles were perfected, detailing the exact proportions, which are still in use today.

For Centuries, calligraphy was an important dimension of traditional Tibetan education, monastic and non-monastic institutions, where the students had to undergo rigorous training in calligraphy for 10 to 15 years, spending at least a couple of years on each style. Listed below are several of these practiced script styles.

Tibetan calligraphic styles fall into two main categories:
1. Uchen has a ‘header’ line above each letter (example above) as in Sanskrit Devanagari, which is why Uchen is often mistaken for Sanskrit. Uchen is the most formal style, and is used in ‘wood block’ printed scriptures.
2. Umeh has no ‘header’ and all the other styles are developments of Umeh, such as the next five examples below. Of these, Tsugring or Druchen, or the ‘long style’ is the first to be learned by students who had perfect long strokes on wooden slates. Tsugring is considered a true calligraphy style to be perfected, example below.

Tsugtung, or ‘short style’, is practiced next, only after the basic strokes had been thoroughly mastered, and the student had acquired complete discipline over his style, he was then allowed to write on paper; an expensive commodity in Tibet. See example Tsugtung below.

Tsugmakhyug has the same shape as Tsughtung, but is smaller. Stylistically, and considered to be between formal calligraphy and Khyug, which is used for ordinary writing, as shown below.

Petsug is mostly used for religious texts as well as epics, stories and special ritual manuscripts. A form of Petsug can also be called Khamyig or Khamdri, which reflects the common use of this script style in the Eastern regions of Tibet: Amdo and Kham. This style is particular for its combination words, where two or three words or a common phrase are abbreviated into one short word. Below is an example of Petsug.

Finally, there are the ornamental styles such as Drucha, with long graceful lines and flamboyant gestures, see below, used for artistic free style calligraphy, and traditionally for non-spiritual book titles and important documents

In traditional Tibetan calligraphy, pens were made of bamboo, with the nibs cut at a prescribed angle. The ink was either indigenously made from lamp-black, or Chinese ink tablets was imported for the purpose. The writing surface was hand-made paper or occasionally silk.

In addition there are two more Sanskrit script styles provided here, these are rare forms of Sanskrit called Lanza and Wartu, which is mainly used to decorate the walls of Tibetan Temples. Wartu is generally used for the heading titles of major religious texts. There are few who fully know these Sanskrit script styles and only Mantras are more widely known in these ancient scripts. Below is the Mani mantra in the Wartu script.

Lastly there is the seal script called Horyig in Tibetan, Hor is the Tibetan name for Mongolia and Yig means script. The geometric labyrinth structure of this script has a strong, commanding visual impression, which is always arranged vertically.

This script is a neo-Tibetan Mongolian script style, sometimes known as Phagpa script, named after its creator Phagpa Lodro Gyaltsen. He devised this script especially for seals in about 1269, which were used across Mongolia, Tibet and China until the present day, from ordinary folk to the Chinese imperials and official seals of the great Lamas of Tibet. Tibetans also use this as a decorative script to flank temple doorways etc.

The Heading Character: Above is an example of the 'heading' swirl, as it is sometimes known. This is not a word as such, but as a symbol, can be prefixed to announce the importance of a word, sentence or mantra. It is an optional addition which is as much attractive, adding to the appeal of a design. This character is traditionally used and differs in style; depending on which of the several Tibetan script styles it belongs to. The example here is a double swirl heading character in the Uchen script.

Below is the Mani mantra with a single heading character, which along with the vowel signs and double (full stop) ending lines; can be traditionally coloured in Red, other colours can be creatively used, such as blue etc, providing a more dynamic design.

The difference between Tibetan written horizontally and vertically: An important point that should be understood for the composition of a Tibetan script tattoo design is that the Tibetan language is formed to writes from left to right, horizontally.

Only in some rare cases can Tibetan be arranged in a vertical manner, especially where the spelling of the phrase or Mantra are made up of single characters. Below is an example of the Pani mantra arranged vertically.

Some words in Tibetan that are composed of up to four characters in text length unit and sometimes two parts/units to one word. Each of the units cannot be broken up to be arranged vertically. Otherwise these words would not read properly and may make little sense.

To explain further, words/units in Tibetan are separated by a dot or single stroke, depending on which script style is deployed. This separation is the only place which the word can be divide, each part/unit of the word can then be stacked one below each other, to achieve a vertical effect, as shown here.

This example shows how the vertical ‘stacking’ arrangement can be worked as a tattoo design. The words here translate as “destiny” in the Drucha script style. This also has an addition of a stylised ‘heading’ swirl, which gives a more interesting and attractive aspect to the top of the design.

Translation problems:
As Tibetan is a Buddhist based language and Tibet is culturally different to the Western world, this cultural difference sometimes creates difficulties when translating some words, slang and phrases.

For example the words ‘God’ and ‘soul’ has different meaning to Tibetans than Christian based Westerners. Some phrases can also be a problem in capturing the same meaning.

Translating names:
It is often asked of me to translate persons names into Tibetan, for which I am a little reluctant to do so, as translated phonetically (the sound of the name rather then the meaning) can result as nonsense to a Tibetan eye. A name may look cool in a particular Tibetan script, but phonetically has no meaning other than sounding like the name.

Moreover there are some sounds that do not exist in the Tibetan alphabet, such as ‘F’ and ‘V’. This makes some names such as ‘Philip’ and ‘Veronica’ impossible if not very clumsy to translate phonetically.

Script size:
There is another consideration for tattoo size and placement on the body.

Generally for a successful looking tattoo, it is advised to keep the design simple and clear without too much detail, especially where a small tattoo is required.

There are a few reasons for this:
Tattoos are mostly seen from a distance, if a design is tight and full of too much small detail, then visually the tattoo appears as an unrecognisable patch on the skin, rather than an elegant coherent design.
Therefore larger designs have a better impact, with areas of the skin between the design un-inked, giving a spacious appearance, with the tattoo as part of the body rather than something just stuck on. The area of the skin has no bounds, disappearing around the body, which unlike the limited piece of paper that a design is created on. a design may look smaller on the skin because of the larger expanse of the body. Often a tattoo may run around a corner of the body (such as an armband) so that the whole design is never seen at once. Therefore the body can accommodate a larger design then one would think.
It is also a well known fact that a tattoo will fade and blur a little with age, especially after many years of sunbathing etc. If a design is too fine and small in detail, the image may blur into each other and the clarity lost. Some parts of the body are more prone to this than others, especially where the skin is thin.

Generally the art work of a tattoo design is presented on an A4 piece of thick quality water-colour paper. The A4 size is a practical size for scanning the image as well as posting through the mail. Because of this limited standard size paper, tattoo designs can be of a different size to what is needed for the size of the tattoo on the skin. It is however normal practice for a tattooist to make a transfer copy of the design, which at this point in the process, the image can be altered to the required size for the tattoo.

As I have mentioned elsewhere: As the Tibetan scripts are considered sacred, especially mantras. In respect of this, there are guidelines given to the appropriate placement on the body.

These above points are in response to inquiries and common questions, which I hope will bring a clearer understanding and possibilities in regards to tattoo designs in Tibetan scripts. Tashi 2008.