When I first stumbled upon Gyanbazi—a medieval Jain board game that doubles as the ancestor of Snakes and Ladders—at the Sculpture gallery in CSMVS Muesum, I must confess I hesitated before diving deeper. As someone who has spent countless hours either playing Snakes and Ladders with my family or poring over the works of Kant, Gyanbazi felt like the perfect intersection of my interests.
At first, it seemed a mere curiosity, the kind of object you’d nod at politely in a museum before moving on to the more obviously glittering artifacts. But something about its apparent simplicity masked an unshakeable depth. This wasn’t just a game of dice and moves; this was an intricate, moral roadmap of the universe, distilled into ladders of virtue and snakes of vice. It was a game where each roll of the dice carried the weight of Jain cosmology and where every climb or fall reflected the cosmic dance of karma. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
The premise is simple enough: climb ladders, avoid snakes. But in Gyanbazi, these are not just obstacles or shortcuts—they are ethical statements. The ladders, straight and dependable, represent good deeds: compassion, honesty, discipline. The snakes, predictably serpentine, symbolize vices: anger, greed, and deceit. The dice? Not just a measure of chance but a stand-in for fate, which, in Jain philosophy, works hand-in-hand with karma. The game takes you on a journey, from the hellish lower worlds to the human realm in the middle and, for the truly virtuous, to the heavenly squares at the top.
It wasn’t long before I discovered that Gyanbazi was a staple of Jain households, especially during Paryushana, a festival of introspection and repentance. Families would gather around the board, children rolling dice under the watchful eyes of elders who seized the opportunity to impart moral lessons. “See,” they might say, “this is what happens when you’re greedy,” as a snake swallows a piece whole. For a moment, I imagined a slightly older version of myself being nudged by an indulgent uncle—“That’s what happens when you skip your homework.” In any case, the game clearly served as a more engaging sermon than most pulpits could manage.
But Gyanbazi was never just an educational tool. It was also a deeply personal experience. In a world where daily life was often precarious, governed by forces as unpredictable as the roll of a dice, the game gave players a sense of agency. Yes, fate might play a role, but your choices—whether you pursued the ladder of truth or slid down the snake of deception—mattered profoundly. It was a way of making Jain philosophy tangible, of allowing players to see the invisible mechanics of karma in action.
Of course, as with all things historical, there is a bittersweet footnote. Gyan Chaupar, the ancient game born from the spiritual imagination of the subcontinent, has morphed over time into the secular Snakes and Ladders we know today. What began as a deeply symbolic journey—teaching karmic theory and the cyclical nature of existence—has been stripped of its moral essence, reduced to a mere race of chance. Yet, perhaps this evolution isn’t entirely a betrayal. Beneath its playful modern surface, faint echoes of its original purpose remain: teaching us that life is as much about the highs and lows as it is about the journey in between.
The story of Gyan Chaupar begins in the 13th century with the Marathi saint Dnyaneshwar, who crafted it as a teaching tool for younger pupils of Jainism. The game wasn’t just about rolling dice and moving pieces—it was a metaphysical experience, a miniature cosmos laid out on a grid. Every ladder climbed symbolized a leap toward virtue, while every snake dragged the player back into the mire of vice. Each square on the board mapped a moral action or state of being, reflecting the eternal dance of karma. The final square—Vaikuntha, the abode of Vishnu—represented liberation, a reward for those who lived virtuously.
Yet, this wasn’t where the game’s interpretations stopped. The Sufis, with their poetic and symbolic worldview, reframed the game as an ascent to the Throne of God. Each ladder became a spiritual leap, each snake a setback on the mystical path to divine union. Hindu schools of thought like Vedanta and Samkhya Yoga infused the game with their philosophies, while Vaishnava Bhakti made Bhakti itself a direct route to paradise. What makes Gyan Chaupar remarkable is how seamlessly it accommodated these diverse cosmologies, becoming less a fixed artifact and more a shared spiritual canvas for India’s religious traditions.
By the late 18th century, however, the game found itself in the crosshairs of colonial curiosity. Richard Johnson, an officer of the East India Company, commissioned one of the earliest surviving lithographed boards in Lucknow between 1780 and 1782. His version added snakes, scorpions, and new twists of peril, though the ultimate goal—reaching Vaikuntha—remained unchanged. This adaptation marked the beginning of the game’s collision with Western sensibilities, a collision that would soon prove transformative.
The 19th century saw Gyan Chaupar reimagined through the lens of Christian morality. Early Western adaptations preceding F.H. Ayres’ patent replaced the karmic cycle of reincarnation with a linear narrative of salvation. Ladders became virtues like humility and charity, while snakes embodied sins like pride and dishonesty. The cyclical rebirths central to the original game were erased, flattened into a one-way race to heaven. In a matter of years, what had once been an immersive moral tool for reflecting on life’s eternal cycle became a simplified race-to-the-finish, more palatable to Victorian households and ripe for mass production.
And so, the game began to lose its spiritual essence, its rebirth as Snakes and Ladders fueled more by commercial than theological imperatives. The cosmological depth of Gyan Chaupar, designed to teach the intricacies of karma and liberation, was distilled into a harmless diversion for children. Today, it occupies a curious place in cultural memory: instantly recognizable, yet stripped of the rich history that made it so much more than just a game.
But perhaps, like me, you wouldn’t guess this at first glance. It’s just a board, after all—a grid of squares, curling snakes, and ladders shooting skyward. Yet, when you pause to look closer, you begin to see its past reflected in every climb and every fall. The faint outlines of Gyan Chaupar’s spiritual journey linger, reminding us of the aspirations and philosophies that once shaped its every square.
So, the next time you roll a dice and dodge a snake, spare a thought for Dnyaneshwar and his pupils, for the mystics and thinkers who saw the universe in this simple game. The cosmic journey may have changed, but its origins remain etched into every roll, every climb, and every tumble back to the beginning. Ask yourself: If you rolled the dice, where would it take you?
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