Pieces and dice

Indian Heritage Centre accession 2016-00126 brings together gaming pieces and dice associated with chaupar and pachisi. The museum dates the set to the eighteenth–nineteenth century and gives its region as India. Listed materials include ivory, wood and silver. Some pieces are elongated domes or squat columns, turned or fluted and coloured with pigment. Oblong, four-sided dice accompany them. The description refers to a cross-shaped cloth board, but the record does not identify a Punjabi maker or place of manufacture.[1]

Dating a game

Jacob Schmidt-Madsen’s 2021 study treats chaupar and pachisi as a family of related games rather than a single timeless form. He questions the habit of projecting a familiar modern board backwards into epic and scriptural references. Names, images, isolated elements and descriptions of actual play do not provide interchangeable evidence. His conclusion locates the direct evidence he identifies no earlier than the fifteenth century, while leaving gaps and possible earlier forms open. His enquiry distinguishes the possible age of individual components from the history of a complete game. That is the study’s historical argument, not an independent examination here of every manuscript it cites. Its approach allows variation to be part of the history rather than a defect requiring one supposedly original version.[2]

An earlier painted board

The Met’s close examination of The Disrobing of Draupadi, attributed to Nainsukh and dated about 1760–65, reports a board concealed beneath the finished rug. Reflected-infrared images revealed a cross shape, sixteen pieces and another set of stick dice. The institution’s analysis found that the game had been painted in colour before being covered. Visible dice and a hidden board belong to different stages of the composition. This is evidence of the painter’s reworking, not a surviving game session or a complete set of rules.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Indian Heritage Centre, National Heritage Board Singapore. Collection of Gaming Pieces and Dice ↗Institutional object record · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Accession 2016-00126; object fields and physical description. Accessed 2026-11-02.The actual object record was read. Its unsupported ancient-origin and social-hierarchy claims are not adopted; no image rights are inferred.Return to Pieces and dice, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Jacob Schmidt-Madsen. The Crux of the Cruciform: Retracing the Early History of Chaupar and Pachisi ↗Scholarly historical study · Source date: 2021-04-27 · Locator: Printed pp. 29–32, 63–64. Accessed 2026-11-02.The actual paper was read within the cited scope. Original manuscripts and the related dissertation were not separately examined; inherited chronologies are excluded.Return to Dating a game, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Disrobing of Draupadi: Close Look ↗Institutional conservation study · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Public-reader lines 24–50, 109; object 2022.247. Accessed 2026-11-02.The actual public-reader body was read after direct access failed. Findings are the institution’s; no independent laboratory examination was performed.Return to An earlier painted board, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-CUL-0135 · English edition · human review not performed