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A Note on Sufi Snakes and Ladders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2021

ANDREW TOPSFIELD
ANDREW TOPSFIELD*
Affiliation:
The Ashmolean, Oxford andrew.topsfield@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article discusses a number of nineteenth century playing boards for the Sufi form of the traditional Indian board game of gyān caupar̩ (the Chaupar of Gnosis), from which modern Snakes and Ladders derives. Usually comprising 100 squares inscribed in Persian, the playing area conducts the players hazardously upward from lower spiritual states to the final goal of heaven, according to the throw of dice and sudden demotions or promotions through snakes or ladders. Most surviving examples are held in British collections, including that of the Royal Asiatic Society. Detailed attention is given to a unique, expanded version of the standard Sufi board which came to light a few years ago. Innovative and elaborate in its structure, method of play and nomenclature, it seems however to have been a late and short-lived experiment.

Keywords

gyan̄ cauparsnakes and ladderssufism
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 32 , Special Issue 4: Studies in Honour of Barbara Brend , October 2022 , pp. 1016 - 1029
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

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Footnotes

‡

The original version of this article was published without the Abstract and Keywords. A notice detailing this has been published and the errors rectified in the online and print PDF and HTML copies.

References

1 See the present writer's “The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders” and “Snakes and Ladders in India: Some Further Examples”, Artibus Asiae, XLVI (1985), 3, pp. 203–214, and LXVI (2006), 1, pp. 143–156, also “Instant Karma: The Meaning of Snakes and Ladders”, in The Art of Play: Board and Card Games of India, (ed.) A. Topsfield (Bombay, 2006), pp. 75–89. Mention should also be made of Jacob Schmidt-Madsen's outstanding, recently completed survey study of gyān caupar̩: J. Schmidt-Madsen, The Game of Knowledge: Playing at Spiritual Liberation in 18th- and 19th-century Western India, Ph.D thesis (University of Copenhagen, 2019). This perceptive and comprehensive contribution to the subject appeared too late for more extensive reference here; as did Irvin C. Schick's important article, “Chess of the Gnostics: The Sufi Version of Snakes and Ladders in Turkey and India,” in Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, (eds) V. Kopp and E. Lapina (Turnhout, 2021), pp.175–218.

2 Pargiter, F. E., “An Indian Game: Heaven or Hell”, JRAS, 1916, pp. 539–542CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Topsfield, “The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders’” pp. 210–211, Fig. 8; also Head, R., Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Engravings and Busts in the Collection of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1991), pp. 141–142Google Scholar; Finkel, I., “The Ups and Downs of Life: The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders”, in Asian Games: The Art of Contest, (eds.) Mackenzie, C. and Finkel, I. (New York, 2004), pp. 58–59Google Scholar, Fig. 4.1; Topsfield, “Instant Karma”, pp. 83–84, Fig. 9; Greenwood, W., Kings and Pawns: Board Games from India to Spain (Dubai and Doha, 2014), pp. 164–165Google Scholar.

3 When first presented to the Society in 1831, the board was described as “a coloured drawing on plan of the Shastree's game of Heaven and Hell”. The said Shastri's own account of his elaborate and original version of the game was read in translation at the Society's meeting, as noted by Sergey Moskalev in 2009, https://sergeymoskalev.wordpress.com/article/game-of-heaven-and-hell-39jofx64dej9f-29/ (accessed April 2019). This blogpost draws attention to the account in the Society's “Proceedings, 16 April 1831”, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register, V (London, May-Aug. 1831), p. 85: “… From Captain H. Dundas Robertson, of the Bombay army, a coloured drawing of the Shastree's game of Heaven and Hell. A translation of the inventor's account of the game accompanied it, and was read. It appears to be founded on a careful examination of the metaphysical systems of the Hindus. The game is divided into a number of squares, of which a part represents the systems of the different philosophers. The plan of the game exhibits the most highly approved methods that have been laid down by Hindu theologians for gaining beatitude. It contains two heavens and two hells. The “Great Heaven”, or Muc'sha, is in fact the Divine essence itself, at which the souls of the good arrive by two different roads: one of which is short (that of Capila); and the other long (that of Patanjali). Both are described in detail, and there are also instructions for playing the game. Two dice and as many men as there are players (twenty-five) are used; the dice are of ivory, about two inches in length, and square. The men are of five different forms, and as many different colours. The author's name is Trivingally Acharya Shastree”. Like the dice and men, the Shastri's text is no longer traceable. But he can most probably be identified as Thiruvenkatacharya Shastri, who worked under the patronage of the Peshwas of Poona. He was a celebrated chess player and author of a treatise translated into English as Essays on Chess (Bombay, 1814); see also Schmidt-Madsen, The Game of Knowledge, pp. 39–40. Mr Moskalev's further blogpost ‘Jnana Bazi’ (2011) is also of interest for bringing to light another late nineteenth century discussion of gyān chaupar̩ in English, Prof. Manilal N. Dvivedi's “The Game of Knowledge (Jnana Baji)”, which appeared in an American Theosophical Society journal in June 1893: https://sergeymoskalev.wordpress.com/article/jnana-baji-39jofx64dej9f-27/ (accessed April 2019).

4 Topsfield, “Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders”, pp. 209–210, Fig. 7; see also Head, Catalogue, p. 163; Finkel, “Ups and Downs”, p. 60, Fig. 4.2; Topsfield, “Instant Karma”, pp. 85–87, Fig. 12; Greenwood, Kings and Pawns, pp. 166–167.

5 Acc. no. EA2007.2: Topsfield, “Snakes and Ladders in India: Some Further Discoveries”, pp. 152–154, Fig. 8. A spiritual commentary based on this game board, entitled “Shatranj Irfani: A Sufi Game”, was subsequently published on-line: http://www.untiredwithloving.org/snakes_ladders.html (accessed April 2019).

6 Acc. no. 1951.995, collected in India in the 1850s by General R. C. Lawrence (1818–96); Topsfield, op. cit., p. 154, Fig. 9.

7 Wellcome MS Or. Persian 800: N. I. Serikov, “On the Path to Supreme Bliss: ‘The Walking Game’, ‘The Adventures of Buratino’ and its ancient Indian Original”, in The India of the Spirit: Festschrift for Rostislav Borisovich Rybakov, Moscow: Oriental Literature, 2008, pp. 287–300, Fig. 2 (in Russian). An old label attached to this board describes it as a “Magical Chart” from Persia, “with cabalistic cartouches for casting nativities, forecasts concerning chances of a sick man's death or recovery, and probabilities of success or defeat in military expedition”. This description follows its original entry text in the sale catalogue of J. C. Stevens (Covent Garden), A Catalogue of Curiosities, 2 May 1916, lot 300; I thank Christopher Fripp of the Wellcome Collection for this information.

8 Evidence is so far lacking for any widespread adoption of Sufi gyān caupar̩ in Iran, except for an early 20th century printed board for the 100-square game, published in Tehran; I thank Sergey Moskalev for bringing this to my attention. Entitled Shatranj al-‘Urafā (Chess of the Gnostics), this board has 12 snakes and 16 ladders, while the Throne of God is housed within a grandiose palace replete with towers and turrets and lined with winged angels. At the same time, Shatrani al-‘Urafā did become popular in Turkey from around 1900, perhaps following the dissemination of mass-produced Indian (and possibly Iranian) lithographed versions. A good number of hand-drawn and painted Turkish boards are known: e.g. I. C. Schick, “Tarihin Tahrif Edilmesine bir Örnek: “‘Osmanli Satranci’ Yahut Satranc-i Urefā’” [“An Example of the Falsification of History: ‘Ottoman Chess’ or ‘Chess of the Gnostics’”], Toplumsal Tarih (Istanbul), 194, February 2010, pp. 12–18; also S. Moskalev, Chess of the Mystics (Moscow, 2014; in Russian), Introduction, Figs. 1–4. The Turkish version of the game gave rise in turn to a spiritual commentary by the Sufi Shaikh Muhammad al-Hashimi, first published at Damascus in 1938: J.-L. Michon (translation), Le Shaykh Muhammad al-Hashimi et son Commentaire de l’Échiquier des Gnostiques (Sharh Shatranj al-‘arifin): un Diagramme des Étapes at des Dangers de l'Itinéraire Initiatique attribué au Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyi al-din al-‘Arabi (Milan, 1998).

9 M. Rezvan, “’Ladders of Life’: A Muslim Divination Table from the MAE RAS Collection”, Manuscripta Orientalia, XVIII, 2 (St Petersburg, Dec. 2012), pp. 39–49, Fig. 6, there described in detail and discussed, on the basis of an accompanying poetic text, as a form of divination.

10 Or even the “chains” with “grapnels”, in Shaikh al-Hashimi's interpretation: Michon tr., op. cit., p. 70.

11 I am grateful to Sergey Moskalev for bringing this board to my attention.

12 Seen with Joost van den Bergh, London, 2011.

13 Now British Library, MS OP.218(10), bound with other miscellaneous printed ephemera, including a Vaiṣṇava gyān caupar̩ board dated V.S. 1919 or 1862 AD: Blumhardt, J. F., A Supplementary Catalogue of Hindustani Books in the British Museum (London, 1909), p. 94Google Scholar, col. 2, “Gyān Chausar”. H. Beveridge also comments on this miscellany volume in his letters of 1915 in the Royal Asiatic Society archive: N. Charley, “Snakes and Ladders”, blogpost (13 July 2017), https://royalasiaticsociety.org/snakes-and-ladders/ (accessed April 2019), also Schmidt-Madsen, The Game of Knowledge, pp. 304, 357.

14 Ashmolean Museum EA2015.415; acquired at auction in Paris (Hôtel Drouot, 3 June 2015, lot 172, there catalogued as Persian).

15 In the Richard Johnson collection at the British Library: Topsfield, “The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders”, Fig. 1, pp. 204–205 (there incorrectly stating that this board has 8 ladders; it has 10); T. Falk and M. Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library (London, 1981), no. 361(iv).

16 I am grateful to Mr Sahba Shayani of the Oriental Faculty, Oxford, for providing translations of this board's inscriptions (here slightly adapted) and of the verses on its borders.

17 The board was later consolidated with an additional cotton backing and with commercial sticky tape over its creases (now removed). I thank Susan Stanton of the Ashmolean Conservation Department for her comments, and Moya Carey of the Chester Beatty Library for her observations on this board.

18 Topsfield, “The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders”, pp. 211–212, Figs. 9–11, and “Snakes and Ladders in India: Some Further Examples”, pp. 157, 173, Fig. 11.