Mixed Martial Artist Dan Hardy’s Dharma tattoo: Where’d it go?
The tattoo in question, via farm4.static.flickr.com
Sports site TSN reports that:
“English welterweight Dan (The Outlaw) Hardy’s stomach tattoo was airbrushed out of the UFC 111 fight poster because it is ‘anti-Chinese government stuff,’ according to UFC president Dana White.
‘”I’m trying to get into China,” he told fans at a question-and-answer session Tuesday. ‘I don’t need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters.’
“Hardy, however, says the tattoo — the fighter’s favourite — is a Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit.
‘”It’s basically just like a prayer for focus,’ Hardy said. ‘It keeps me walking the path that I should be walking without veering off and distracting myself.’
“Apprised of that explanation, White said: ‘That’s not what I heard.’
[...] “‘I heard that it was anti-Chinese government, so I ripped that thing off it. I’m not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we’re trying to get into China. . . . I don’t know what this stuff means, so I’ve got to be safe.’
But, as the MMA site Bloody Elbow (nice name, that) points out:
“The tattoo is the well known Buddhist mantra “Om mani padme hum” which has no political significance in relation to China.”
Well, not quite no political significance. While the tattoo isn’t an overt anti-China statement, China sure is sensitive to hearing about Tibetan Buddhism. Some, like Robert Thurman, would even go so far as to say that the Chinese government is trying ‘re trying to, um, airbrush it away.
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March 24th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Reader Gary E.D. comments via Facebook: “Kowtow to the party line. Typical. And pathetic.”
March 25th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
More comments at SunSpace, where a slightly different version of this post also appears:
http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=15726
July 18th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Hi everyone,
I am a Tibetan translator and I found this lively page while researching my Keywords.
I have also visited a few other sites, and found them very interesting, for example the debate that has evolved here:
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/3/24/1388427/dan-hardys-buddhist-prayer-tattoo
However, though many articles and blogs discussing Mr Hardy’s Tibetan tattoo can be said to be very informative in many respects, they do not usually say much about the tattoo as a piece of art in its own right, its aesthetic value etc.
What is more, often the information pertaining to the meaning and other linguistic aspects is insufficient or even misleading. The above-mentioned Webpage features a very impressive discussion regarding the various circumstances RELATING to the tattoo, but at the same time (unfortunately) fails to offer even the most basic correct information relating to the TATTOO ITSELF, for example, it says (and apparently Mr
Hardy thinks so himself?) that the tattoo is a “Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit”.
This is a grave error since the other way around is correct: the tattoo is a collection of Sanskrit words written using Tibetan Uchen graphemes, i.e. the so-callled Tibetanised Sanskrit.
If I really wanted to split hairs I could go on about the distinction between ‘Sanskrit’, the language, and ‘Devanagari’, the script, or the distinction between a ‘prayer’ and a ‘mantra’, but I’d rather keep this post short.
If anyone would like to know more about the theoretical aspects of Sanskrit and Tibetan script tattoos or perhaps even get his/her own tattoo design for practical application, you are welcome to peruse my Webpages:
http://tibetantranslation.bravehost.com/
(Click on “Tibetan Script Design” to view my main page featuring various Tibetan script arrangements and fairly detailed linguistic information.)
For my most recent creations please visit:
http://tibetan-translation.blogspot.com/
I use some of the highest-grade fonts (typefaces) to create my designs, hence the visual / orthographic / calligraphic quality is indisputable (certainly better than Mr Hardy’s design), and since I happen to be a professional Tibetan translator, the correctness of my Tibetan script designs also is guaranteed.
On a lighter note I’d like to say that life is stern and life is hard, but let us not be too serious about it! I hope we can all have a co(s)mic day
Yours,
Tibetalia