Snakes and Ladders
A Traditional Indian Game

As with most board games, this is played for entertainment, yet it also highlights (and reinforces) Indian religious ideas of karma and reincarnation.

To play, all players begin with their pieces on space number 36, which has a silhouette of a human being (thus corresponding to the human realm of existence).  Each player rolls a die, and advances his/her piece the corresponding number of squares (note that the board ascends in a zigzag--left to right, then right to left). 

If a piece lands on a square bearing the head of a snake, one slides down, whereas squares with the bottom of a ladder lead one upwards. The game is won by the first player to reach square 100, the "Heaven of Final Deliverance."

Each snake or ladder is not only associated with specific faults and virtues, but also with particular rewards and punishments. Disobedience (square 41) leads to birth as a donkey (the most stubborn of animals), impurity leads to birth as a dog (the epitome of impurity, since dogs eat just about anything), and vanity leads to birth as a peacock. Some of these connections with faults and animals (pride and horse, greed and monkey, and so forth) have strong connections in Indian culture, but are less apparent to outsiders. In the same way, certain virtues lead to specific desirable outcomes.

Notice that there are more snakes than ladders, and that the ladders tend to be clustered in the top of the board, whereas the snakes are spread throughout the board. One of the messages here is that spiritual development is a long process for which one may not see rewards for a long time (until one gets to the "upper half" of the board), whereas the hazards are present up to the very end (notice that the penultimate space on the board is the serpent of "Desire," which takes one almost all the way down to the bottom). Another message here is the transiency of the heavens as a place of refuge. Even if one lands in the Heaven of Vishnu (#97), only three spaces from the end, on the next turn one must roll again, and a two-spot brings a tremendous fall. The religious message here is that until one attains final liberation, one is continually at risk.

This image originally appeared in:

 Fun and Festival from India (pp. 25-26)

Rose Wright (National Director of Young People's Work, Department of Missionary Education, The United Christian Missionary Society)

New York: Friendship Press, 1938 (original