Pachisi

Scheme of a pachisi board.

Pachisi is the national board game of India and Pakistan, descended from the game of chaupar, or created around the time of the creation of chaupar. Pachisi is a game in which 4 players advance 4 tiles each on a cross-shaped board. Generally, it is played by teams of 2. Yellow and black play against red and green. The winners are the team that brings the last of all their chips home first. You can pass the turn voluntarily.

Played with dice or cowrie shells. The name of the game comes from the word pacis which means 25, the most points that could be obtained with the original shells.

History

Similar games of chaupar with different color schemes have been identified along with Iron Age dice during the Painted Gray Pottery period at Mathura and Noh sites (1100-800 BCE) Tables have been depicted cruciforms in artistic reliefs from Chandraketugarh dated between the 2nd century B.C. C. and I a. A 6th or 7th century depiction of Shiva and Parvati said to be playing Chaupar (a closely related game) in fact depicts only dice and not the distinctive board. In a similar period, a board identical to the pachisi was discovered in the Ellora cave system. A Song dynasty (960-1279) document referencing the Chinese game ch'u-p'u 樗蒲 (Wade-Giles, pinyin chūpú), "invented in western India and spread to China in Wei times (220-265 AD)" may be related to Chaupar, but the actual nature of the Chinese game (which may be more closely related to backgammon) is uncertain. Speculation that Pachisi was derived from Ashtapada's earlier game is plausible but unsubstantiated.

Large old garden version - Fatehpur Sikri - India; marked boxes can hardly be distinguished under the shadows of viewers.

Louis Rousselet wrote:

The Pachisi game was played by Akbar in a truly regid way. The Court itself, divided into red and white boxes, was the board, and a huge stone raised on four feet, represented the central point. It was here that Akbar and his courtiers played this game; sixteen young harem slaves, clothed with the colors of the players, represented the pieces, and moved to the boxes according to the release of the dice. It is said that the Emperor so liked to play this large-scale game that he ordered to build a courtyard for the pachisi in all his palaces, and you can still see traces of it in Agra and Allahabad.

Irving Finkel adds:

To date, these great boards continue to represent the first sure test of the existence of the game in India. The role of the game in the history of India is still to be investigated. It is often assumed that the gambling that plays such an important role in the Mahabharata'The classic literary epic is the pachisi, but the descriptions, as they are, do not match the game, and this conclusion is perhaps wrong.

In 1938, the American toy and game company Transogram introduced a mass-market version of the board game called Game of India, later marketed as Pa-Chiz-Si: The Game of India.

Style

Pachisi is a cross and circle game. Other games of this style are: pancha keliya from Ceylon; nyout, from Korea and "edris to jin" from Syria.

Remains of a similar game played by Moctezuma's subjects, patolli, have been found in Mayan ruins in Mexico, and the ancient Egyptians played an equivalent game called senet, which had some similar features.

An image of the game.

Target

The goal of pachisi is to make a complete turn with all the tiles. The exit is next to the arms. Each toss of cowries serves to move only one token. If a turn is repeated, it can be moved with another token. To get out of jail, the first token can get out with any roll of the die. The next ones have to come out with 6, 10 and 25, respectively.

Traditional elements

Board

The board is in the shape of a cross or X with four equal arms. Each player starts from their own base. The route through the 2 sides of each arm of the cross or X is made up of 8 boxes on each side of the arm plus one at the end. With some squares that are safe (three per arm), where you cannot eat an opponent's piece if it is in it. The middle row of each arm is the homecoming or charkoni. The game ends when the two players from the same team bring all their chips to the Charkoni.

Player tokens

Each player has four pieces in general in the shape of a beehive (in some versions it can be increased up to 16 pieces for each player). Each player's pieces are distinguished by their colors: black, green, red and yellow.

Example of the chips of red Pachisi, yellow and green blacks of the centuryXVIII in enameled gold of Muslim Mogol India. At the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art.

Number of players

They can play either two or four players. It is played in teams of two players. Yellow and black against red and green. The players sit in opposite positions. If two players play, they play with both sets of pieces (yellow and black or red and green).

Dice or cowries

Six cowries (cypreid shells) are used to determine the number of squares the player can advance a piece on his turn. The shells are dropped from the player's hand and the number of cowries that fall with their openings facing up indicate how many spaces the player can move:

Eating tiles is done in the same way, in a square that is not safe, called a castle. One player's token is placed next to the other player's token and the captured token is returned to his Charkoni. Also, the capturing player gets an extra turn.

Scoring is done by counting the cowries facing up, as follows:

To emulate shells instead of dice, you can use any element that gives a binary result when thrown, for example a coin (heads or tails). It would be played with six coins.

History

Similar sets of chaupar with different color schemes have been identified along with Iron Age dice during the Painted Gray Pottery Culture period at Mathura and Noh sites (1100-800 BCE) Cruciform tablets have been depicted in Chandraketugarh relief art dating to the 2nd century BCE. C. -century I a. A rendering of the VI or VII of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati playing Chaupar (a closely related game) in fact depicting only the dice and not the distinctive board. In a similar period, a board was discovered identical to pachisi in the Ellora cave system. A Song Dynasty (960-1279) document referring to the Chinese game ch'u-p'u 樗蒲 (Wade-Giles, pinyin chūpú), &# 34;invented in western India and spread to China in Wei times. (220-265 AD)" may be related to Chaupar, but the actual nature of the Chinese game (which may be more closely related to backgammon) is uncertain. Speculation that Pachisi was derived from Ashtapada's earlier game is plausible but unsubstantiated.

A giant pachisi board on the floor of Fatehpur Sikri's old garden - Uttar Pradesh state. India.

Philologist Irving Finkel wrote:

The Pachisi game was played by Akbar in a truly regid way. The Court itself, divided into red and white boxes, was the board, and a huge stone raised on four feet, represented the central point. It was here that Akbar and his courtiers played this game; sixteen young slaves of the harem dressed in the colors of the players represented the pieces, and moved to the boxes according to the release of the dice. It is said that the Emperor so liked to play this large-scale game that he built a courtyard for the pachisi in all his palaces, and you can still see traces of them in Agra and Allahabad.

Finkel adds:

To date, these great boards continue to represent the first sure evidence of the existence of the game in India. The role of the game in the history of India is still to be investigated. Often the game that plays such an important role in MahabharataThe classic literary epic is the pachisi, but the descriptions, as they are, do not correspond to the game, and this conclusion is perhaps wrong.

Further reading

• Bell, R. C. (1979). Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations (in English) I (Revised edition). Dover Publications. pp. 9-12. ISBN 0-671-06030-9.