Mokshpath
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- By Ma India and Missus Abracadabra
- Posted in ancient games, chad valley, dice games, game, liberation, Mokshapath, snakes and ladders, Vedas
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MOKSHAPATH
“Snakes and ladders” was one of my childhood favourite games . One Christmas some relative whose name is lost in the annals of time gave me a wonderful Chad Valley version – the board folded double and was of really strong printed carton, there were four colours of tiddly winks, a dice and a container to shake the dice in. This all came packaged in a lovely box and I was extremely proud of my wonderful possession. I played it constantly with my cousin John over the vacation period, and then I introduced Pauline Mottershaw (my best school chum) to the intricacies’ of the game. I was hooked and it became a life long love affair which I never been able to extricate myself from.
I knew nothing of it history and of it philosophy was I equally ignorant. Its origins involving much more than just child’s play.
The British stole the concept of the ancient Indian game in the late 1800’s and marketed it in Europe as snakes and ladders and I believe as a game called Kismet which appears to be a little closed to the original. It reaches the United States in the 1940’s and was marketed as chutes and ladders. When “snakes and ladders” arrived in England some subtle changes occurred. Vedic virtues and vices were replaced by Victorian ideals. The ladders representing fulfilment grace and success were replaced by thrift penitence and industry. The snakes of indulgence, disobedience and indolence immersed one in illness disgrace and poverty.
Indian Vedic games had many more snakes than ladders to draw attention to the path of righteousness are more difficult to follow than the path of sin. The Victorians chose to temper this; maybe it to do with the idea that belief in Jesus redeems all sin.
Before it arrived on British shores it was called Mokshapath in Sanskrit. Moksha meaning liberation and Path meaning way or path or road.
Surviving game boards suggest Snakes and Ladders emerged somewhere in Northern India or Nepal. In its earliest identifiable form it was called Gyan Chauper, but some scholars think the earliest form of the game may have emerged from ancient Jain mandalas.
, The Vedic tradition believes in a philosophy of reincarnation and karma which are reflected in the position attained in this life. Like in Judaism preaches an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth The Vedas peach that the deeds of your past make you what you are today and the deeds of today will be reflected in who you will become in the future.
This cycle will repeated indefinitely untill one attains liberation from all karmas – no new karmic depts. are built and one is free to unite with the universal soul. (moksha= to be united with the Paramatma)
The aim of life is to reach Moksha. It is stated that we have undergone many incarnation to have been born as humans (even the devas (angels) are jealous of our human life) we must utilize this precious boon and strive therefore to achieve its chief aim- Moksha and be released from the eternal cycle of life and death.
The object of Moksha path was to teach children the intricacies’ of the path to liberation. Salvation or Moksha being at the top of the board. Bad deeds lead one into the snakes mouth and a slippery slidey road back down the path and a ladder will reward one’s virtuous deeds with a short cut to the top.
Bad deeds are represented by snakes and good deeds are represented by ladders, each ladder and snake is a moral lesson.
originally the virtuous squares are:
• 12 was faith
• 51 was Reliability
• 57 was Generosity
• 76 was Knowledge
• 78 was Asceticism.
Originally the vice or evil squares are:-
• 41 was for Disobedience
• 44 for Arrogance
• 49 for Vulgarity
• 52 for Theft
• 58 for Lying
• 62 for Drunkenness
• 69 for Debt
• 73 for Murder
• 84 for Anger
• 92 for Greed
• 95 for Pride
• 99 for Lust
100 was the square of Moksha or Nirvana! The ultimate goal of the game. You win when you reach the 100th square!
The original designs were beautiful works of art, painted onto to cloth and as precious as any religious document which indeed it was. It is believed originally cowrie shells and Indian dice were used to play but this is superstition as none survive and no documentation on this has been found. “
• They are meant to teach us in a way that is very different from oral history and storytelling,” says Colleen Macklin, director of New School’s PET Lab, which designs games around social engagement and education in underserved communities around the world. “Without the players, the game doesn’t even really exist — I mean, you could say that there’s a board with some images drawn on it, or some dice, but it really isn’t anything until we play it.”
Play predates any formal system of language, education, politics, even our species itself. For us and our fellow primates, play is as much a way of being entertained as a way to work out how we interact and negotiate with the world. With that in mind, it’s really no surprise that evidence of humans playing games goes back thousands of years. But in an age when many of the newest games become unplayable within a decade of their invention, we still have something to learn from games as old as Snakes and Ladders have stuck around for thousands of years.
• “My impression is that some boards (including Jain ones) seem more pessimistic in that they include a lot of snakes and fewer and shorter ladders to aid the upward path,” says Andrew Topsfield, keeper of Eastern art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and a leading scholar on the game. “This may reflect the very highly developed nature of Jain karma theory and the many subtle spiritual pitfalls that the Jain scholars identified. The bhakti or devotional worship-based boards (Hindu and Muslim) can seem a little more balanced in this respect, though not without generous provisions of dangerous snakes of their own.”
The longest recorded game took 394 moves. 97.6% of games take 100 moves or less to complete.
Joni Mitchel wrote a song claiming that love was a game of snakes and ladders hers the refrain:-
• Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Buy the Carphone
Call the broker
Get to the bottom climb back up
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Buy the wife a diamond choker
A diamond choker
There is a kids play centre ( complete with a sea of balls) in Dunstable, but I do not see any relationship to the game I became hooked on. Poor children don’t know what they are missing out on. This is what their advert spouts:-
• Offering extensive indoor adventure, Snakes and Ladders is jam packed with fun. There's a huge soft play area and three-tiered climbing frame, electric motorbikes and more!. There's a huge area for 2-5 years, and a Let's Pretend Home Corner
And another one in Brentford. Its claim to fame only being its address.
I’m happy to have played the nearly original version and would give half a sows ear(not literally) to have my old game back, battered box and all.