Akbar played pachisi on a courtyard board with people as the pieces
The Mughal emperor Akbar liked pachisi so much that he played it life-size. A palace court marked in red and white squares served as the board, a huge raised stone marked the centre, and sixteen young slaves from the harem, dressed in the players' colours, moved as pieces according to the dice.
Akbar reportedly had a pachisi court built in each of his palaces, and remains can still be seen at Agra and Allahabad. Those giant boards are the earliest secure evidence that the game existed in India. Its name comes from the Hindi word for twenty-five, the highest score a throw can make, so it is also called Twenty-Five, though some versions allow thirty.
The board is a symmetrical cross. Moves are decided by tossing six or seven cowrie shells and counting how many land with the opening facing up. Two, three or four can play, and four usually pair off, yellow and black against red and green. Each player normally has four beehive-shaped pieces, though some versions allow up to 16 per side, and the first team to bring every piece home wins.
Its deeper history is murky. The epic Mahabharata mentions a game called Pasha, and pachisi is often identified with the gambling match central to that story, but the epic's descriptions do not really fit, so the link may be mistaken. Iron Age sites at Mathura and Noh, dated about 1100 to 800 BC, have produced dice and games resembling chaupar, a close relative. Reliefs at Chandraketugarh from the second or first century BC show cross-shaped boards, and a board matching pachisi turned up in the Ellora caves from around the sixth or seventh century, while a carving of Shiva and Parvati said to show chaupar actually shows only dice. A Song dynasty text describes a Chinese game called chupu as invented in western India, but it may be closer to backgammon. A descent from the older game ashtapada is plausible but unproven.
Relatives are everywhere. Barjis is played in Syria and the Levant, Parchís in Spain and northern Morocco, Parqués in Colombia, the game of little horses in France and Mensch ärgere Dich nicht in Germany. Commercial cousins include Parcheesi, Sorry! and Ludo, and in 1938 the American firm Transogram sold a version called Game of India.
Source: Pachisi
