Black line drawing of a multi-armed figure holding weapons, set inside a circle of script and small symbols, shown as a tattoo design on a white background.

Multi-armed figure in a circular yantra design

Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a multi-armed figure holding weapons, seated or standing within a dense ornamental body. The figure is surrounded by a circular border of script and small motifs, with geometric yantra-style symbols above and below. The work uses fine outlines, hatching and dotted fills in black on white, with no colour.

Figure Deity Sword Script Circle Symbol Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ink was never meant to be mine. Khun Boonma kept his bamboo needles wrapped in a cloth that smelled of wet smoke, and every morning he unwrapped them in the same order, as though the order mattered more than the work. I had swept his floor for two rainy seasons before he let me hold one.

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The drawing he gave me that year was a ring of script with a many-armed figure at its heart, six hands full of blades, a bow, a club and a coiled cord. He said the ring was a fence and the figure the gatekeeper, and that a fence drawn crooked lets in the wrong dogs. I spent three weeks copying the lines onto palm-leaf paper. My first circle wobbled like a cart wheel with a stone caught in it. He laughed, rolled the paper up, and made me start again.

When the fisherman came, his boat's name still scratched on his forearm in a child's hand, he wanted a protection for the river nights. Khun Boonma handed me the needle and pointed at the sword arm. Press lighter, he said, the blade is only the thought. The wielder is patient. I pressed too hard on the first stroke and he wiped the bead of blood away with his thumb, then nodded me on. I finished the ring by dusk, every dot and small symbol in its place, and the fisherman paid in coins still warm from his pocket.

The next morning the palm-leaf copy was pinned above the needles. My crooked first circle hung beside the clean one, and the gatekeeper stood in both, his six hands lifted just the same. Khun Boonma tapped the wobbly ring with one inked finger and went back to unwrapping his needles.