Author: Siddharth Wakantkar (Interview
by Milind Ghatwai)
Publication: The Indian Express
-Flair
Date: September 30, 2001
Our ancestors weren't concerned
only with the Vedas and Vyakarana, they saw the lighter side of life as
well. Scholar Siddharth Wakankar tells Milind Ghatwai how game we once
were
THE relevance of ancient texts may
be the subject of debate following Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi's
decision to introduce astrology in universities, but few will dispute that
much of our scriptures remains uninvestigated. And, says noted Sanskrit
scholar Siddharth Wakankar, the principal reason for the popular disinterest
is the tendency to focus on the more 'erudite' sections of ancient literature,
to the exclusion of more everyday subjects.
It is an imbalance he's trying to
put right but, as he says, it will take some doing. ''All the focus, such
as it is, has been on the Vedas and the Vyakarana, the Vedant and Nyaya,
Dharmashastra and Alankarshastra. Nobody projected the social orientation
of the part of Sanskrit literature relevant to the common man'', says Wakan-
kar, deputy director of the Oriental Institute, M S University, Vadodara.
It was while researching 20-odd
manuscripts - each between 300 and 500 years old - that Wakankar stumbled
on the board games extensively documented in Sanskrit literature. His research
on the subject has since been recognised by the Ramkrishna Sanskrit Award
by the Saraswati Vishwas Canada, a branch of the Canadian World Education
Foundation.
Wakankar's first discovery was the
Ganjipha (literally 'playing cards' in Persian), followed by Chaturanga
or chess. His job was by no means easy since there were few reference points
for the territory. Many manuscripts were too brittle to be even photocopied.
At the S M Singh II Museum in Jaipur, he found diagrams showing the movement
of the horse on the chessboard, but there was no back-up text.
However, Wakankar found help in
unexpected quarters, like Austrian scholar Rudolph Von Leyden and Dr George
Cardona of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as closer home, in G
K Bhat of Bhandarkar Institute, Pune, and G C Tripathi and Ganganath Jha
of Allahabad's Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapith, Allahabad.
''There was a religious sanction
for the games,'' he observes. ''But the introduction of European games
sounded the death-knell for the indigenous variety. For instance, after
European cards became available here, Ganjipha slid into a decline.''
Wakankar believes Sanskrit itself
can be popularised if the games are revived. ''I'm not the only person
to think that way. King Krishnaraj Wodeyar (1794-1868) of Mysore had tried
to do the same with his Kannada book Shreetatva Nidhi, where he described
13 varieties of Ganjipha. Even at that time, he felt the need to explain
the game.''
Incidentally, says Wakankar, German
scholars are now studying the ancient versions of chess and snakes and
ladders as part of their research into Indian culture. Wakankar himself
has delivered several lectures on the subject in India and abroad.
SNAKES & LADDERS
The earliest version of Snakes and
Ladders is credited to 13th century saint-poet of Maharashtra Gyandev,
who called his creation Mokshapat (Moksha=Salvation, pat=cloth). The 'game',
however, was not about entertainment; it was created to explain the basic
tenets of Hinduism to the common man.
The game was drawn out on a cloth
divided into blocks called houses, each representing emotions like daya,
karuna and darr. The ladders represented virtues and the snakes, vices.
The snake at hinsa would take one down to mahanarak while Vidyabhyas would
take one to the Shastras. The game was played with dices and cowrie-shells.
The game travelled to Thanjavur
in the 17-18th century. It was magnified in size and called Parama Pada
Sopana Pata and went through other alterations as well.
GANJIPHA
The playing cards, too, had a religious
sanction. They were circular in shape and varied from 20 mm to 120 mm in
size. They were covered with various kinds of material or with lac and
paintings, depending on the owner's economic background. While the poor
would use paper or starched cloth for their cards, the wealthy would go
in for cards in ivory, tortoise-shell or mother-of-pearl.
There was a basic set of 12 cards
featuring various aspects of Indian mythology, but the Dashavtari (referring
to the 10 incarnations of Vishnu) Ganjipha was played with 120 cards and
three players. The Navagraha Ganjipha was a game with 108 cards divided
into nine suites, representing the nine planets. Ganjipha was popular right
upto the 19th century among royal families.
CHATURANGA
Chaturangadipika is the first known
Sanskrit work describing the game of Chaturanga or four-handed chess. Much
like chess, it was played on a board but it had four kings and no queens.The
kings played with their respective armies but, unlike chess again, not
everything was about using brains. Dice played an important role in separating
victor from vanquished. And the victories and defeats were of various kinds,
like Simhasana, Chaturaji, Brhannauka etc. It owed its popularity to a
religious decree that required people to stay awake throughout the Ashvini
Purnima nights by playing the game.
After the Dharmashastras banned
Chaturanga as a game of luck, the game of four kings was modified into
something much closer to the modern game and re-christened Buddhibala,
as a tribute to the talent, intellect and logical reasoning the game demanded.
