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I'm looking to get a tattoo and have anicca written in Pali in several places. Can you help me with how to write this in Pali script?

Thanks in advance!

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    There is no "Pali script" as such, is there? i.e. Pali is written using various scripts (or "writing systems") -- including Sinhalese, Khmer, Roman, etc.
    – ChrisW ♦
    Commented Jan 10, 2019 at 19:26
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    Who, if knowing about anicca, would beauty his ugly, decaying body with a tattoo and pull such truth into not-seriousness... harm himself and wast his past merits...
    – Samana Johann
    Commented Jan 10, 2019 at 23:23
  • "The essence of practice is remembrance, whether its remembering to come back to the present moment or recalling the truth of impermanence" - ANdrew Holoceck || . This tattoo is my structure for remembrance!
    – Ari Cuadra
    Commented Jan 19, 2019 at 4:31
  • @AriCuadra There was a comment requesting you to share if you finally discovered and chose Anicca in a certain script. In this case, you can post an answer with it.
    – ruben2020 ♦
    Commented Dec 22, 2020 at 2:32

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Pāli was in oral tradition, so pāli had no its own script. However, pāli can be written by most of the indo-europian script instead.

Therefore, the best tattoo in Buddhism is reciting the Sutta in pāli, it is the beginning of all meditations.

Anicca is anicca (अनिच्‍च; อนิจฺจ) without number&gender-definition.

It is aniccā (अनिच्‍चा; อนิจฺจา), aniccāni (अनिच्‍चानि; อนิจฺจานิ) as plural.

It is aniccā (अनिच्‍चा; อนิจฺจา), aniccaṃ (अनिच्‍चं; อนิจฺจํ), anicco (अनिच्‍चो; อนิจฺโจ) as singular.

It is mostly used as an adjective, and its noun often is plural.

"Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā (सब्बे सङ्खारा अनिच्‍चा; สพฺเพ สงฺขารา อนิจฺจา)" is common widely used.

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  • Thank you Bonn. This was extremely helpful!
    – Ari Cuadra
    Commented Jan 19, 2019 at 4:31
  • Which scripts are these?
    – ChrisW ♦
    Commented Feb 1, 2019 at 16:28
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    @ChrisW It's devanagri, अनिच्‍च, and Thai, อนิจฺจ.
    – Bonn
    Commented Feb 1, 2019 at 16:33
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You might try searching for "anicca pali images" in Google. This will get you exactly what you asked for. However, consider the following experience.

When I went to India I travelled to Varanasi (yes, the one in the suttas). I asked for a henna tattoo of "gate, gate, parasamgate, bodhisvaha". And they looked at me and said. What on earth is that?

So I told them it was the Heart Sutta. And they looked at me and said what on earth is that?

So I told them it was a Buddhist Sutta. And they said, "oh. The Buddha.".

They asked me if Sanskrit was fine, and it was. I got my tattoo and it was very very fine.

Later that year I related this wonderful experience to my monk friend. He laughed and said, "The Buddha didn't write the Heart Sutta."

So now I just study the EBT's and don't worry about tattoos.

To study the suttas, I use SuttaCentral Voice, which is a companion website to SuttaCentral. SuttaCentral Voice is designed for the visually impaired (I have AMD and cannot read printed material). The search box is used just like Google's, but only searches the EBT Pali Canon as hosted on SuttaCentral. In this way, we can search for any phrase such as "root of suffering" and browse to our hearts content. Our hearts are all slightly different, so what you type will depend on you.

Perhaps start witn anicca.

:pray:

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