I recently had the honor of collaborating with Tashi Mannox, a master calligrapher of Tibetan scripts, to translate the English title of a fiction film I’m working on, The Magic Circle.
The phrase ‘magic circle’ in the film is a reference to a Tibetan Mandala, a symbolic representation of enlightened mind/reality, and is invoked by a Mandala painter as he explains its visionary power to his nine-year old daughter.
“Mandala’s are like magic circles”, the painter says. “Its outer rings hold our deepest fears, and its innermost circles our most treasured dreams. To find yourself at its center is to be at one with your life, but the journey to get there is not easy. But neither is it difficult if you truly know how to imagine, and go beyond your current limits.”
The phrase ‘Magic Circle’ in character dialogue and as title for the film serves two functions: to distill and simplify the word ‘Mandala’ for audiences who have no cultural or educational reference to it, and to contextualize the Mandala of our film story within a more mythopoetic, fictional setting akin to the old Tibetan epics rather than within the strict, religious framework practiced by Tibetan monks and Buddhist adherents.
Translating between two linguistic systems (Tibetan-English, East-West), each with their own symbolic, philosophical, and cultural reference points, can oftentimes be impossible. Finding the right Tibetan wording for the ‘Magic Circle’ in analogy to a Mandala posed an interesting challenge. On the one hand, it was crucial that we avoid translating the actual Tibetan word ‘magic’ because its meaning is interpreted in Tibet as ‘illusion’, not seeing the nature of reality clearly, abiding in ignorance or a lack of Wisdom — the opposite of the Mandala’s enlightened mind/reality. On the other hand, in the occult sense the word ‘magic’ can (in English) also point to an altered or otherworldly reality invoked through the intentionality of the mind, and in this respect using the word as an analogy to the Mandala is appropriate. For Buddhist practitioners, the Mandala is used as a visionary tool to alter one’s perception of reality, and awaken to our highest potential.
We settled on the Tibetan phrase Trul Gyi Khor-Lo. Broken down, Trul means ‘magical’ and gyi is a joining is a particle which can be translated as ‘of’, however in this case the joining particle transforms the meaning of ‘magical’ into something more akin to the English word ‘mystical’. Khor-lo means ‘wheel’, ‘cycle’, or ‘circle’, and interestingly Khor is also used in Dkyil’khor (‘Mandala’), so we were able to include a subtle, linguistic reference to the Mandala without directly pointing to it. Trul Gyi Khor-Lo keeps us rooted close to the tradition of the Mandala while also allowing us the flexibility required for a fictional story.
Tashi offered two different types of Tibetan calligraphic script for The Magic Circle, one in the more contemporary Uchen script (used for the last several hundred years) and another in Petsug script, which is my personal favorite and particularly relevant to our fictional story. Petsug is an ancient script used in mythical epics and special, ritual manuscripts as far back as one-thousand years ago. A form of Petsug can also be called Khamyig or Khamdri, which reflects the common use of this script style in the Eastern regions of Tibet, Amdo and Kham, which is where the inspiration for this film story began.
Here are the final calligraphic scripts Tashi delivered — Petsug (above) and Uchen (below).
If you’re interested in seeing or learning more about Tashi Mannox’s work, you can visit tashimannox.com
