Sports and Games in

India in the past

Rekha Pande

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 Games for Physical perfection
 Physical perfection has been an integral part of Hinduism.
 One of the means to fully realize one's Self is defined as the
body - way or dehvada. Salvation was to be gained through
physical perfection or kaya sadhana, possible only through
perfect understanding of the body and its functions.
 The capstone of Hatha Yoga is strength, stamina and supreme
control of the body functions. The zenith of the whole
experience is the fusion of meditation and physical movement.
 The ' eight - fold method ' encompasses techniques associated
with breathing control or pranayama, body posture or asanas,
yogas, physical movement of the body, and withdrawal of the
senses or pratyahara.
 Religious rites provided the needed impetus to physical culture
in ancient India.
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 Indus valley civilization
 Excavations at Harappa and Mohenjodaro
confirm that during the Indus valley
civilization ( 2500 - 1550 B.C ) the weapons
involved in war and hunting exercises included
the bow and arrow, the dagger, the axe and the
mace.
 These weapons of war, for instance, the javelin
( toran ) and the discus ( chakra ), were also,
frequently used in the sports arena.

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 Vedic period
 During the era of the Rig - Veda, Ramayana and Mahabharata,
men of a certain stature were expected to be well - versed in
chariot - racing, archery, military stratagems, swimming,
wrestling and hunting.
 Lord Krishna wielded an impressive discus or Sudarshan
chakra. Arjuna and Bhima, two of the mighty Pandavas,
excelled in archery and weightlifting respectively. Bhimsen,
Hanuman, Jamvant, Jarasandha were some of the great
champion wrestlers of yore. Women, too, excelled in sport and
the art of self - defence, and were active participants in games
like - fighting, quail - fighting and ram - fighting.

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 Indoor Games
Chess/ Chaturanga/ Shatranj.
Chaupar-A Game Of 17th Century, also called as Chandal
Mandal
Parcheesi-An ancient Hindu game
Nard/ Backgammon-Introduced into Hindustan by the
Muslims
Snakes and Ladders- called as Mokshapatamu
Playing cards-Called as Ganjifa cards/ Judamulu

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 Buddhism
 With the flowering of Buddhism in the country,
Indian sport reached the very peak of excellence.
 Gautam Buddha himself, is said to have been an ace
at archery, chariot - racing, equitation and hammer -
throwing.
 The renowned Chinese travellers Hieun Tsang and Fa
Hien wrote of a plethora of sporting activities.
Swimming, sword - fighting ( fencing, as we know it
today?), running, wrestling and ball games were
immensely popular among the students of Nalanda
and Taxila.


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 Origin of games in India
 Games like, Chess, Snakes and Ladders,
Playing Cards, Polo, the martial arts of Judo
and Karate had originated in India and it was
from here that these games were transmitted to
foreign countries, where they were further
developed.

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 Chess

 Some people say that India first invented the game of

chess,  but others say that China invented it. 
Chess was known as 'Chatur-anga', which means 4
bodied; it was played by 4 players. 
 Chaturanga, that is, the four angas, or members of an
army, which are said in the Amarakosha (an ancient
Indian Dictionary ) to be elephants, horses, chariots
and foot soldiers.
 It's current name is Shatranj. This game was known in
India nearly 3000 years ago. It traveled from India to
Persia in the 6th century.

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 Chess origin in India
 The age when epic Mahabharata was written is
variously dated around 800 BC to 1000 BC. In some
form or the other, the game continued till it evolved
into chess.
 H. J. R. Murry, in his work titled A History of Chess,
has concluded that chess is a descendant of an Indian
game played in the 7th century AD.
 The Encyclopedia Britannica states that we find the
best authorities agreeing that chess existed in India
before it is known to have been played anywhere else.

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 Mahabharata
 In the Mahabharata when Pandavas and Kauravas play this
game. Yudhistira the eldest of the Pandavas places his bets on
his kingdom, his wife Draupadi and all other material
possessions.
 By a malevolent trick he loses to the Kauravas everything that
he had placed his bets on. Consequently to humiliate the
Pandavas, Dushasana one of the evil Kaurava brothers takes
hold of Draupadi whom Yudhisthira has lost to the Kauravas,
and tries to disrobe her in front of the assembled court.
 The Pandavas though powerful are helpless as they have lost
Draupadi and according to the rules of the game they have no
claim on her anymore.

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 Chess/ Chaturanga/ Shatranj
The earliest clear ancestor of
Chess is Chaturanga - meaning
4 bodied It was a battle between
four armies each under the
control of a Rajah (king), two
players being loosely allied
against the other two and each
containing 4 corps - Infantry,
Cavalry, Elephants and
Boatmen. The board of 64
squares used for Shaturanga,
was borrowed from an earlier
game called Ashtapada, which
was a race game played in
Ancient India.

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 Playing cards
 The popular game of cards originated in ancient India
and was known as Krida-patram in ancient India. It
was known as Ganjifa, in medieval India
 The game of playing cards was also one of the
favorite pastimes of Indians in ancient times.
 This game was patronized especially by the royalty
and nobility.
 The Mughals also patronized this game, but the
Mughal card-sets differ from those of the ancient
Indian royal courts.

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 Set of 12 cards
 On the authority of Abul Fazal we can say that the game of
playing cards had been invented by sages in ancient times who
took the number 12 as the basis and made a set of 12 cards.
 Every king had 11 followers, thus a pack had 144 cards.
 The Mughals retained 12 sets having 96 cards.
 These Mughal Ganjifa sets have representations of diverse
trades like Nakkash painter, Mujallid book binder, Rangrez,
dyer, etc., In addition there were also the Padishah-i-Qimash,
king of the manufacturers and Padishah-izar-i-Safid, king of
silver, etc.

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 Ashvapati cards
   Highest card - Ashvapati - 'lord of horses'.
represented the picture of the king on horseback. 
 Second highest card -  Senapati -  represented a
General on horseback. 
 Then  ten other cards with pictures of horses from
one to ten.
 It is probably that the game of playing cards had been
invented by wise men in ancient times who took the
number 12 as the base and made a set of 12 cards.
Each card was hand-painted by artists, a work of art!

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 Gajapati Cards
 Another set of cards had the Gajapati (lord of
elephants) which represented the king whose
power lay in the number of elephants.
 The other cards in this pack represented the
Senapati
 Ten others with a soldier astride an elephant.

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 Narpati and other Cards
 Another pack has the Narpati, a king whose power
lies in his infantry.
 We also had other cards known as the Dhanpati, the
lord of treasures,
 Dalpati the lord of the squadron,
 Navapati, the lord of the navy,
 Surapati, the lord of divinities,
 Asrapati, lord of genii.
 Vanapati, the king of the forest and
 Ahipati, lord of snakes.

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Playing cards/ kridapatram/ Ganjifa

 This game was known in

ancient times as
Kridapatram, in the middle
ages, it was known as
Ganjifa.
 In medieval India Ganjifa
cards were played in
practically all royal courts.
 This game is recorded to
have been played in
Rajputana, Kashyapa Meru
(Kashmir), Utkala (Orissa)
the Judamulu (Deccan) and
even in Nepal.

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 Snakes and Ladders/ Mokshapatamu
 It is a game of morality with the bases of the
ladders being located on squares representing
various types of good and the more numerous
snakes representing various forms of evil.

 The squares of virtue on the original game are

Faith (12), Reliability (51), Generosity (57),
Knowledge (76), Asceticism (78); the squares of
evil are Disobedience (41), Vanity (44),
Vulgarity (49), Theft (52), Lying (58),
Drunkenness (62), Debt (69), Rage (84), Greed
(92), Pride (95), Murder (73) and Lust (99).
 A Game played to teach children about the
religion in that the good squares allow a player
to ascend higher in the league of life whereas
evil will reduce a player back through
reincarnation to lower tiers of life last square,
100, represents Nirvana.
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 Outdoor Games

 Martial sports-Judo Karate

 Polo
 Hunting
 Animal fighting
 Wrestling
 Other games like Horse racing, Fishing, Boating,
Swimming, etc.,
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 Judo Karate
 Most people believe that Karate and Judo originated in ancient
India.
 It traveled from India to the far-east with the Buddhist
religion. Buddhist monks changed the violent nature of the
sport to the more mental game it became.
 The goal is to disable your victim  without wounding him,
which is more like the Buddhist outlook on life. 
 Martial arts by the name of Kalaripayattu were a native of
Kerala, a state of India. Kalaripayattu consists of a series of
intricate movements that train the body and mind
 
 
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 Polo
 No one is quite sure where Polo came from, but some records
indicate that it was played by the ancient Persians as long ago as
25000 years.
 Probably the game developed from the Central Asian nomads, who
spend their lives on horseback. It quickly spread to India, where it
was developed into a game to promote equestrian military skills
and was considered the most important test of princes and
warriors.  It was known as "Chaughan", meaning mallet.
 In India, Polo was played in medieval times, and was the national
sport of India until the end of the 16th century. 
 The word polo comes from the Tibetan word pulu, which means
ball.
 Manipur as the birth of Polo was destined to become the favorite
sport of the Englishmen in India

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 Chaughan
It’s called polo today. The origins of
polo records that the ancient
Persians. In India, polo was
widely played in the medieval
times. However, it was Babar, the
founder of the Mughal dynasty,
who established the popularity of
polo in India in the 15th century.
Emperor Akbar the Great was a
patron of polo which was
regularly played at his court.
Under the Mughals, polo was
virtually the national sport of
India until the end of the 16th
century.

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 Hunting
 The Mughal emperors were keen hunters of wild
game, and avid patrons of sports, especially
wrestling.
 The Agra fort and the Red Fort were the popular
venues of many a wrestling bout, in the times of
Emperor Shahjahan. Chattrapati Shivaji's guru,
Ramdas, built several Hanuman temples all over
Maharashtra, for the promotion of physical culture
among the youth.

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 Babar Hunting a tiger

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 Shah Jehan Hunting

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 ShahJehan hunting Rhinos

A costly and dangerous

expedition by few
privileged like the kings
and the quarry consisted
of elephants, lions,
tigers, rhinos, boar
hunting-an exception
for Mohammedan kings.

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 Hunting Scenes in Manuscripts

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 Wrestling/peechu /Kushti
Wrestling or Kushti was
a favorite game of the
medieval times. In
vijayanagara empire
even women took part
in wrestling contests.

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 Animal fights

Animal fighting was one of the

popular recreations of the
age and the animal combat
was between different
animals, from less
expensive fighting of goats,
rams, cocks, bulls to
dangerous combats between
elephants, tigers, cheetahs,
boars ,etc.,
Cock fighting was common
among the higher middle
class and bulbul fighting
among the youngsters.

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 Camel Fight

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 Elephant Fight

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 Martial Arts
Martial sports included Archery and
swordsmanship. Matches and
contests were held. Annual sham
fights were held on Onam festival
in Kerala and in other parts of
south India like the Coorg
Kingdom.
Infact Kalaripayat from Kerala
was transmitted to China by
a sage named Boddhidharma
in the 5th century whom the
Chinese called Po-ti-tama
what we now call as Karate.

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 Archery In Mughal Period

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 Archery In Mughal Period

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 Other Games
Other games like kho-kho,
Gillidanda, khabbadi,
fishing, Boating, races
were also medieval
India’s favourite sports

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Importance of these games today
 Ancient India's sports and games have impacted us
today by giving us ideas for other games and sports
that we have created. 
 We have improvised on their games and made them
better and much more fun to play. 
 They  thought of and created some great games to
play and great sports to participate in. For example, 
we still play chess and polo and we still play with
cards.  
 Ancient India has taught us how to defend ourselves
using karate and judo.

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 Chess
 Today's chess is played with only two players,
instead of four as in Ancient India.  It's
original name of  "Chaturanga" was changed
to "Astapada", which means 'eight steps', a
description for the eight steps or squares which
the modern Chessboard has.

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 Playing cards

 When the Europeans learned how to print on

paper in the 17-18th centuries, hand-painted
cards disappeared.  The style of cards changed
until they look like the familiar ones we use
today.  Ancient India's development of the
playing cards have helped to develop more
card games like:  Snap, Go Fish, Crazy Eights,
Solitaire, etc.

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 Karate and Judo

 Karate and Judo are considered to be an art, as

much as they are martial.  Both are closely
connected with practices of meditation and
should be used only for the protection of the
weak.  Both  demand that students have a deep
respect for the teacher and a lesson always
starts with a bow of the students to the teacher.

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 Polo

 Polo is still played in India today and is still a favorite

game to play.  
 In 1857, Joseph Sherer, a subaltern in the Indian
army, saw villagers playing the game and got really
excited.  He learned the game and taught it in every
town he lived in. 
 In Calcutta in 1862, Polo was played in public, for
the first time.  Its popularity quickly spread and the
British army adopted it for themselves. 
 Today, you can still see it played by aristocrats, such
as Prince William and Prince Andrew.

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 Thank you

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