Jacob Schmidt-Madsen, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Copenhagen (URL)
Phañjikā: An Early Cruciform Game at a Late Medieval Indian Court
The cruciform game of caupaṛ, adopted by the British as Ludo in the late 19th century, is often referred to as the national game of India. In the late 16th-century Ain-i-Akbari, the Mughal court historian Abul Fazl wrote that "[f]rom times of old, the people of Hindustan have been fond of this game." The question, however, remains as to how old those "times of old" actually were. The earliest certain references to the game are found in Bhakti poetry and Sufi romances from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, but now a hitherto unexplored chapter from the 12th-century Mānasollāsa adds new evidence. It reveals the existence of what appears to be an elaborate form of the game played at the court of King Someśvara III (r. 1127-38) of the Western Cāḷukya Empire.
This paper traces the early history of caupaṛ and engages with key passages from the chapter on phañjikā, or the game of five, in Mānasollāsa 5.16. It reconstructs the layout and rules of the game as far as possible, and discusses the clearly amorous purposes to which it was put. Phañjikā was primarily played by women and young boys to while away time in the palace, but when the king joined the game it took on the character of a lover's game. The same is true of caupaṛ in later textual and visual sources, thus further closing the gap between the two games.