The Forgotten History of Paramapadham Alias Snake and Ladder
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Several centuries ago, this game had a lot of meaning in it. It is believed to be discovered in India by Saint Gyandev in 13th century
During those times, It was known by the name “Moksha Patham” and it was discovered with an intent to teach moral lessons to children.
The previous version had squares with human qualities in them.
The ladders or something similar to that represented good virtues while the snakes or something similar represented the bad ones.
Robert Charles Bell was an author who had dedicated his life on researching traditional games and received several awards in London for the same. This is an actual image from one of his publications, “the Boardgame book”. To my knowledge, this book is not available in India. Thanks to my friend, for getting images of it from an US library.
In this book, RC Bell had indicated that the original version had bad virtues such as Disobedience in 41st square, vanity in 44th, vulgarity in 49, theft in 52, lying in 58, drunkenness in 62, debt in 69, murder in 73, rage in 84, greed in 92, pride in 95, & lust in 99
Denoting that These 12 virtues would degrade your life.
And the game also had good virtues like Faith in 12th square, reliability in 51st, generosity in 57th, knowledge in 76th and asceticism in 78th square
Which means these 5 virtues would help you move up in life.
Finally crossing all squares, you reach the final square 100 which represented Moksha.
So, it was evident that, through this game, they have beautifully injected into the kids subconsciously that you have to follow good virtues and refrain from bad ones. For instance, a little child playing this game would feel Oh my God, I should escape from debt, I should escape from that big snake Pride. So, It happens to register in their brain subconsciously, that Pride makes you fall.
So that’s how the game was crafted beautifully.
That was the concept behind it.
Yet Another interesting discovery.
Brett Westwood & Stephen moss, In their book 25 extra ordinary species that has changed our world mentioned that before 19th century there were not even ladders in the game. Then? There were two kinds of snakes instead. One was the black snake and other was the red snake. The snake in black symbolised evil deeds, so when captured by it, you naturally go down while red snake was considered a mythical serpent holding unto which you could climb up. In several parts of India, some kinds of snakes are worshipped even now. Black Snakes, Red snakes.
So, we see that centuries after centuries, this game has went through several modifications,
In 1892, When India was under British control, the game was inspired by English and it was introduced in United Kingdom.
In 1943, Milton Bradley introduced this game in USA.
Unfortunately, the original version was modified. And it came to be known as Chutes and Ladders.
The images of virtues were removed and they were replaced by some insignificant images like traffic signals, trains, and so on. Besides, You would fall from tail of the snake to its mouth. Also, the number of snakes and ladders were made equal, contrary to what was present earlier.
If you watch the board closely, in earlier versions there would be a lot of snakes than the ladders indicating that attaining good virtues is very difficult while turning out to become bad is relatively easy.
But in modern days and many versions of it, it has almost levelled.
This game actually has many versions and names, Vaikundapali, Saanp or seedhi, Parampadha soppanam and so on. Ancient game Leela was actually a precursor for this game.
Even Jains had a similar type of game for their version of religion, known as Gyan Chauper. There is even a Painting of it available in cloth in our National museum at New Delhi. Jains have a practice of playing this game during 10 day long feast Parushyan
Similarly some Hindus, especially Vaishnavas stay awake for the whole night and play this game on a spiritually significant day for them known as Vaikunda Ekadasi,
There is a common thought prevalent among some people that during the play if you keep becoming prey to snakes, it means you had done a lot of Paapam and if you climb the ladder easily, then you done a lot of punyam, though there are no evidences to substantiate this claim. So, just play happily.
Concluding, we find that how moral ideologies and beliefs have been skilfully inserted into a game to teach moral values to a child right from young age.
In simpler terms the snake and ladder teaches mankind that Life is filled with ups and downs, & success and failure. So no matter how many times you fall through a snake, believe that there is always a ladder waiting to lift you up. So just keep playing the game of life with confidence till you reach the destination.
I have played some similar like this game we made based on same concept but just know I am very much surprised by how brilliand the knowledge behind this was. I can't imagine any game or any thing for young kids to understand the truth and virtues of life better than this game. This game itself is a guide.
Nice information. This type of information should be available in regional languages so that it will be more expressive and easy to adopt to common man.
Gracias = Thank You.
I will create my own .
Beautiful Game .
Thank You India
Too good 👌👌👌
very educative, Thanks
Thnkx for this great info the game is same why dnt we reset mokhshapadam again instead of snake and ladder
Possible. There are chances parents might be interested to get it for their kids
oh..really a new knowledge...thanks a lot.
Thank you
Profound !
Good channel
Please do a video on Chakras
Will try to do it 👍
Great research! Is there a way to get this original version (pictured) sheet?
Thank you. The characteristics were as present in the old edition, including the number in the square. But the images as mentioned in the video were only for illustration.
Excellent research
Now the question is how we can revive it
come on bro you as an Indian how can you make the Indian map wrong.
this is really dishertaining.