Large realistic black and grey back tattoo of a Buddha face with closed eyes, with green lotus flowers across the back.

Buddha face and lotus flowers across back

Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo

A large tattoo of a Buddha face with closed eyes covers most of a bare back, seen from behind with the wearer's hair in a bun. The portrait is drawn with soft grey shading and fine dark outlines, with a stylised headdress above and cracked, fine-line details across the skin. Several lotus-style flowers are coloured in muted green and grey, set against a light, plain background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mahin had been chipping at the same cheek for three days, and the stone would not give him the curve he wanted. The Buddha above the cave mouth had been carved by someone who loved the eyes more than the jaw, and two monsoons had worked fine grey cracks down from the hairline. The abbot wanted it whole before the pilgrims came up the valley in spring.

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He worked with the lamp set low on the ledge, the way his teacher had taught him, so the light raked across the face and showed every fault. At dusk the lotus carvings beside the shrine turned green in the wet air, as if the stone had been painted by someone patient. Mahin did not paint them. He only scraped the moss from the petals and let the lichen be.

On the last evening he stopped trying to smooth the cracks away. He traced one with his thumb, from the brow towards the lip, and understood that the face had always been broken like this and still looked calm. The eyes were closed. Whoever carved them had never needed them to see.

He left the chisel on the ledge and climbed down to the river to wash his hands. When he came back in the morning, the abbot was standing before the wall with a bowl of rice. He did not ask what Mahin had done. He only set the bowl at the Buddha's feet and bowed.

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