PARCHEESI AND THE CULTURE OF INDIA

Overview

Parcheesi has enjoyed great popularity as an American board game, but did you know that it is derived from a more complex game played in India? In this unit, you will read about the cultural contributions of the Indian subcontinent and the development of its games. Since Parcheesi is played with dice, you will also learn about the history of these number-generating devices and the role of probability in games of chance.

Indian Culture

India has held a glorious and important position in the history of mankind.

Starting around 3000 BCE, Indian Bronze Age culture flourished in the Indus Valley. Called the Harrapans, the people discovered advanced techniques in metallurgy, built large multi-storied structures out of brick and designed sophisticated drainage systems.

Hinduism is the oldest religion in India, and its practice dates back to the Indus Valley civilizations. An understanding of Indian history provides insight into the influence of Hinduism.

In 537 BCE, Siddhartha Gautama attained the state of enlightenment (according to Buddhism). This movement was highly significant to the culture of India and has corollaries to the importance of Jesus in the Western Hemisphere.

Alexander the Great pushed eastward in 326 BCE into India. His army reached a breaking point near the Ganges River, where he retreated. Yet, this invasion and the influence of Persian culture brought western influences to India. Alexander's move opened up trade routes that flowed for hundreds of years, bringing many goods from the East into European culture. The trade routes established through conquest led to cultural diffusion.

The Roman Emperor Augustus initiated trade with India around 1 CE, and Rome became India's largest trading partner in the West. Various Indian kingdoms in the south and eastern parts of the continent had long-established overseas trade routes with Southeast Asia (modern day Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand). The trade route that existed with its western terminus in Rome extended all the way to the southern Pacific Ocean. By 1 CE, 120 ships were setting sail every year on the Rome-to-India route.

The Gupta Empire (ca. 320 CE to 550 CE) is often called India's Golden Age. This era marked high-water achievements in the arts, sciences, government, technology, and mathematics. The decimal system of counting, including the invention of zero, came from this period of Indian history. This was a great era of peace and prosperity, which resulted in advances in both academic thought as well as leisure activities (games). Chess and Pachisi date from this period. Modern Hinduism formed during this time.

By the 1600s, Great Britain had established a strong presence in India. The British East India Company was given permission to trade with India in 1617. This exchange grew to the point that England essentially ruled a portion of the Indian continent. Through a series of victories over the French in various parts of the world, sections of India came under British rule. By the middle of the 19th century, Britain, through the East India Company, effectively ruled India, and India (along with the area that is known today as Pakistan and Bangladesh) became a large colony of Britain. This situation remained, not without strife and struggle, until just after World War II. Then, India achieved its independence from Britain under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi, considered by some to be the most remarkable leader the world has ever known.

Math Connection

Since art and education flourished during the Gupta Empire, a number of significant discoveries were made. Two great mathematicians, Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, were responsible for a number of findings in the field of Vedic Mathematics. For example, Aryabbhatta estimated the value of pi to the fourth decimal place. Many of the basic principles of Algebra were developed along with the concepts of infinity and zero. The symbols for the numbers one through nine were devised during this era. After the Arabs adopted them, they became known as Hindu Arabic numerals.

Go to Questions 1 through 6.

Parcheesi

Parcheesi is the American adaptation of the ancient Indian Cross and Circle game called Pachisi. Otherwise known as Royal Game of India, the game dates back to 500 CE. Royalty supposedly played the game with game pieces that resembled costumed dancers. It is known by many names worldwide such as Parchis in Spain, and Ludo in Britain. Detractors of the American game say that it is too simplified as compared to the original; the Western version is mainly a children's game, while the original is an adult game.

The game is a chase board game, similar to modern games such as Sorry. Here are three notable characteristics of chase board games:

 

Rules

These rules can be found here.

Parcheesi is played with two six-sided dice , and the goal of the game is to take each of four colored pawns to the center square.

The Parcheesi board has sixty-eight squares in all. Sixteen of these are safe squares (squares where a player’s pawn cannot be eaten or forced to return to start by an opponent). A pawn that catches up to an opponent's pawn on an unsafe square eats it and then continues the rest of the player's turn. When a player sends another player's pawn back to its nest, that player gains 20 points that he may move with only one of his pawns.

Five has a special value in this game because it serves to get pawns out of the nest where they begin the game. When a five is tossed, the player can get a pawn out of the nest and begin to move around the board. With double fives, a player can get two of them out. It is not possible to place more than two pawns in the same square.


Two of a single player's pawns can form a blockade when they share the same space. It is destroyed when one of the two pawns moves or when there is no other way to move for any pawn than by passing over the blockade.

When a doublet (pair) is tossed, the player gains an extra turn. In addition, if all the pawns are outside the nest, the values below the dice can also be used. For example, a player who rolls 6-6 can also move 1-1 with either the same pawns or different ones. With two pawns on the board, a player can move 7 with one pawn and 7 with another one. With three pawns, a player can move 6-1-7, and with 4, a player can move 6-6-1-1. With this type of play, the player always moves one or more pawns a total of fourteen spaces. If all of the 14 cannot be used, the turn is forfeited. A player with 3 consecutive doublets can automatically take a pawn to the center square.

When a pawn enters the arrival square by exact count, the player gains 10 points that can be used to move one pawn. If this cannot be done with the pawns remaining on the board, the points are lost.

Playing Parcheesi

Using the pictures below as a guide, make your own playable copy of Parcheesi. You can use a traditional design for your game board or rely on your own creativity. Remember—you must be able to play the game according to the rules listed in this unit. Create your own gaming pieces or use appropriate pieces from other games. Once you have crafted your game board, play several games of Parcheesi with family and/or friends.


 


A Word about Dice

Random number-generating tools, such as dice, are among the oldest gaming devices known to man. The sticks used in the Royal Game of Ur and Senet are also examples. The Romans called the four-sided anklebones tali or astragali and the standard six-sided dice tesserae. French children were taught math using the mechanics of dice. In England, Richard the Lionheart and King John both gambled with dice; Henry VIII lost the bells of old St Paul’s in London on a throw of the dice.

Modern Day

Dice are actually just a simple , random - number generator. The randomness causes the element of luck in this gameplay.

Most computer games use some form of random number generator. Humans enjoy games that contain an element of chance, because it adds drama and unpredictability. As long as the game balances the unpredictability with a sense of skill, the game is probably fun.

In modern times, the advent of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) added various new shapes of dice, such as those listed below, to the playing field:

Random or Not?

Because we throw dice with our hands, many people believe we can influence the roll of dice.

In ancient times, the outcome was thought to be controlled by the the gods; it was beyond the simple mechanical interaction of flat surfaces, momentum and gravity. Casting dice was used to divide inheritances, to choose rulers and to tell fortunes.

Physical Dice

Before square plastic cubes with dots became commonplace, dice were often made from natural substances such as fruit stones, flat edged sticks, sea shells, nut shells, and pebbles. Some were derived from knuckle bones or ankle bones used for ministrations by shaman or witch doctors. Does that mean some dice may be luckier than others?

Cheating at Dice

Manipulating dice so as to cheat is often referred to as loading dice. Most of the loading methods involve weighting one side so that certain faces have a better chance of coming up. Sometimes wax was used as the weighting substance. When blown on by someone's breath, wax melted and flowed into the side of the die held downwards. This altered the balance of the cube.

Probability

Probability is inherent in dice games. It is important to have a solid understanding of the simple type of probability used in games for two reasons.

1. To be a good game player and to implement strategy, it helps to understand your chance of succeeding at any single roll. For example, what are the odds of rolling a five or doubles?

2. To see how games work from the inside out, you need to see how the parts fit together, and events in many games are based on probability.

Start with the simple question: Given a die of N sides, what are the odds of rolling any single result?

List the possible results of rolling that die. Follow the example below to see how to calculate the probability for a six-sided die. The method will apply to any die.

Example—Six-Sided Die Probability

The possible results of rolling a six-sided die are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. There are six possible results in any single throw. If you want to know the probability of rolling a 1, you would compare the successes (in this case, only one success or 1) to all the possible results (six in total). The probability of success is 1 out of 6, or 1/6. Another way to say this is 1 in 6 . The odds of success are the successes compared to the failures (1 to 5).

This is called a discrete uniform distribution. This rule and method can be applied to many situations.

1. What is the probability of rolling a 2 or less? If you said two out of six, you are right!

2. What is the probability of rolling an odd number? Yes, three out of six is correct.

Rolling two dice and adding them is a little more complicated, but this kind of combined probability must be mastered, as many games use more than one die (Backgammon and Parcheesi, for example).

Dice Combinations

A similar method to the one discussed above is called enumeration, which simply means to count all the possibilities. Examine the possible results of rolling two dice. The lowest combined result would occur if both dice rolled a 1, so this is 1 + 1 = 2. The largest combined result would occur if both dice rolled a 6, so the largest result is 6 + 6 = 12. The possible results range from 2 through 12. To figure out the probabilities, list all the possible combinations for those results.

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For a 3, you would roll a 2 on the first die, and a 1 on the second. You could also have a 1 on the first die and a 2 on the second, so there are two ways to roll a result of three.

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For a result of four, you could have the following possibilities (listing the dice in the order you'd roll them): 1 + 3, 2 + 2, 3 + 1. Therefore, there are 3 possible ways to roll a result of four.

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For a result of five: 1 + 4, 2 + 3, 3 + 2, 4 + 1. So, there are 4 possible ways to roll a result of five.

Six: 1 + 5, 2 + 4, 3 + 3, 4 + 2, 5 +1. There are 5 ways to roll a six.

Seven: 1 + 6, 2 + 5, 3 + 4, 4 + 3, 5 + 2, 6 + 1. There are 6 ways to roll a seven

By these examples, you should be able to figure out the number of ways to roll an 8, a 9, a 10, an 11 and a 12.

There are five ways to roll an 8, four ways to roll a 9, three ways to roll a 10, two ways to roll an 11, and one way to roll a 12.

Now you have a list of the number of possible combinations when you roll two six-sided dice together. Often games that use two dice ask the following question: what is the probability of rolling (for example) a 4 or less? A 5 or less? A 6 or a 7? To determine the answer, count the possibilities.

All the possible combinations of rolling two six-sided dice and adding them together equal 36 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1). So, the probability of rolling a two is 1 out of 36; rolling a four is 3 out of 36, and so on. To find the probability of rolling a four or less, you add together the combinations of two (1) three (2) and four (3) = 6 (1 + 2 + 3). There are 36 combinations, and 6 successes, so the probability of rolling a four or less is 6 out of 36, or 1/6th. This method of counting successes out of possibilities is a very useful one to know and master for board games.

One way to practice your understanding of probability is to play the game of Yahtzee. Rules for Playing Yahtzee. You do not need to create a game board, but be sure to download the score card before playing the game.

 

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