Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo with a central Om symbol and lotus flowers on the outer thigh, photographed in a black and white indoor setting.

Om mandala with lotus flowers on thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a person's upper thigh, with a large ornate mandala tattoo centred on the skin. The design includes a central Om symbol, lotus flowers, paisley-style swirls and rows of dots and beaded detailing, drawn in fine black linework with some shading. The image is cropped to the leg and the background shows a sofa, a low table and a fireplace.

Dotwork Botanical Thigh Om symbol Mandala Lotus Paisley Flower Dot Ornament

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had closed the Kharu pass for nine days, so the only work left in Sanghel was copper. Master Tenzin had me sitting cross-legged on his floor with a stylus and a sheet of beaten brass, telling me to make dots until my wrists ached. 'Every dot is a breath,' he said. 'Count them wrong and the bowl will sound wrong.'

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The commission came from a muleteer named Dorje Wangmo, who had walked up from the valley with a sack of old coins and a drawing on the back of a tea packet. She wanted an Om at the centre, lotus petals around it, and swirling paisley like the shawls the women wore at the spring fair. I drew it four times. Tenzin rubbed out my first three attempts with his thumb and said the lotus had to be rooted, not floating, or it would be a picture rather than a thing you could hold.

On the last night before the pass opened, I hammered the final ring of beads while the stove ticked. Something made me scratch a small sprout of mud at the base of the lotus, a line no one had asked for. Tenzin saw it in the morning and said nothing. He only turned the bowl in the lamplight so the dots caught and shone.

Dorje Wangmo collected it at dawn, wrapped in a grey blanket. She ran her finger round the rim, counting under her breath, and when she reached the mud she laughed and said she had lived in mud her whole life and had never seen it drawn. I watched her go up the white road until she was a dark speck on the ridge, one more bead on the string.