My Calligraphy...

A Myofascial Approach to Thai Massage: East meets West

This book on Thai massage by Howard Evans has just been published by Churchill Livingstone featuring some of my calligraphy in the cover design.

The Siddhaṃ text is from the Mettā Sutta.

Bonji taikan

Today I discovered a most amazing reference book in the Cambridge University Library. Although the text is mostly in Japanese the rest is in Siddhaṃ and Romanised Sanskrit. It is nothing less than a complete calligraphy manual for Siddhaṃ including what looks like every possible combination of consonants (more than 100 pages of them!). It also includes many mantras which look to have come from the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, and other examples of Siddhaṃ, particularly grave markers. I'd say that John Stevens must have consulted this book in writing Sacred Calligraphy of the East because many of the letter charts look identical to what he gives. What a boon! I learned things just by leafing through it and I'm looking forward to giving it a more thorough going over.

Title:	Bonji taikan ( 梵字大鑑).
Published:	Tôkyô : Meicho Fukyûkai, 1983.5.
Description:	2satsu ; 27cm.
ISBN:	4895511154

Amazon Japan are clocking it at ¥ 69 660 which Google tells me is UK£ 336.57. Thank goodness for libraries is all I can say.