# The history of Leela, from Gyan Chaupar to today

Leela descends from gyan chaupar, the Indian "game of knowledge", whose oldest surviving boards date from the eighteenth century. Jain, Hindu, Sufi and Tamil traditions each had their own boards. In 1892 the game was registered in London as Snakes and Ladders, and in 1975 Harish Johari revived its spiritual form as Leela.

## What was Gyan Chaupar?

Gyan chaupar, also spelled jnan chauper or gyan chaupad, is Hindi for "game of knowledge". Its other common name, moksha patam, means "ladder" or "board of liberation". The boards were interactive maps of the cosmos: heavens, hells, planes of being and the path of the soul. Players moved a single pawn by chance, landing on virtues that carried them up and vices that brought them down.

The game had many regional names: gyanbazi among the Jains, Paramapadam ("steps to the supreme abode") in Tamil, Vaikunthapali in Telugu, nagapasha ("snake noose") in Nepali, and Shatranj al-Arifin, the "chess of the gnostics", among Persian Sufis.

## How old is the game of knowledge?

Older than most people think, and younger than many websites claim. The earliest dated board is an 84-square Jain cloth board from Rajasthan, made in 1735. The earliest datable Hindu board, a 72-square Vaishnava chart, was made in Lucknow around 1780 to 1782 for Richard Johnson and is now in the British Library.

Claims that the game is 2,000 years old have no primary source. The story that the thirteenth-century saint Jnaneshwar invented it first appears in an astrological text of 1871. The leading scholar of these boards, Jacob Schmidt-Madsen of the University of Copenhagen, concludes that the game "appears not to have been invented before the late 17th or early 18th century". His current hypothesis is that the boards began as tantric diagrams of the subtle body, used for meditation, and only later became a game.

## How did Jain and Hindu boards differ?

The traditions shared the idea of a soul climbing toward liberation, but their boards differed in size, goal and even dice.

- The Vaishnava 72-square board is the direct ancestor of Leela: seven lokas, three gunas, the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati at 47 to 49, a ladder of Bhakti (devotion) at 54 and a snake at 72.
- Jain boards lay the grid over the figure of the cosmic man, with hells below and the top reachable only by ladders. Jain teachers still use the game to teach karma to children, and Jains play it during Paryushana.
- In Tamil Nadu families play Paramapadam through the night of the Vaikuntha Ekadashi fast to stay awake until dawn.

| Tradition | Squares | Goal | Distinctive feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vaishnava (Hindu), Jaipur and Lucknow | 72 (8 x 9) | 68 Vaikuntha | Played with seven cowrie shells |
| Jain gyanbazi, Gujarat and Rajasthan | 84 | Realm of the liberated souls | Four-sided stick die; top reached only by ladders |
| Sufi, Persian and Mughal | 100 (10 x 10) | Throne of God | More ladders than snakes; Persian inscriptions |
| Tamil Paramapadam | e.g. 132 | Vaikuntha | Snakes named after demons |
| Johari's Leela (1975) | 72 | 68 Cosmic Consciousness | Rows read as chakras; one cubic die |

## How did Gyan Chaupar become Snakes and Ladders?

Moral race games were already known in England: in 1818 William Darton published The New Game of Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished. In October 1892 F. H. Ayres of London registered a spiral 100-square game with five snakes, five ladders and no moral labels, the first documented English Snakes and Ladders. In 1895 it was reported as "lately introduced in England", played with ordinary dice instead of cowries.

Around 1900 British boards carried Victorian virtues and vices on their ladders and snakes. By the 1940s the Indian imagery had gone, and in 1943 Milton Bradley published Chutes and Ladders in the United States. One thing changed deeply: the Indian boards could be replayed without end, as a cycle of births, while the Western race ended at square 100 with a winner.

## Who was Harish Johari?

Harish Johari (1934 to 1999) was an Indian author, artist and tantric scholar. In 1975 he published Leela: The Game of Self-Knowledge in New York, with a foreword by Claudio Naranjo. A boxed edition with a board followed in 1993, and since 2007 the book has appeared as The Yoga of Snakes and Arrows: The Leela of Self-Knowledge.

Johari wrote that his board followed one kept for about 150 years by a family of commentators in Uttar Pradesh, together with an older incomplete board from Rajasthan. The original book of verses had been lost, so he wrote a commentary for each square himself. He mapped the eight rows onto the chakras, called the ladders "arrows", and set the rules still used today: start unborn on 68, enter with a six, land exactly on 68.

## How has Leela been revived today?

From the 1970s Johari's board was taken up by New Age communities in the West. In Russian-speaking countries Лила became widely played as a "transformational game": a question is set, a six is needed to enter, the game ends at 68, sessions can last many hours, and there are no winners. Psychologists there describe it as a projective method, close to metaphorical cards, rather than therapy.

English-speaking facilitators, retreats and podcasts now present Leela as a tool for self-discovery, and apps have brought it to phones. Scholarship has grown too: Andrew Topsfield's studies from 1985 onward and Schmidt-Madsen's corpus of nearly 150 boards, published as The Game of Knowledge in 2026, have given the game a careful history.

## FAQ

**Is Leela really 2,000 years old?**
There is no evidence for it. The oldest surviving boards date from the eighteenth century, the earliest dated one being a Jain board of 1735. Older Indian dice games such as chaupar and pachisi are well attested from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but those references concern a different, cross-shaped race game.

**When did Snakes and Ladders come to England?**
The first documented English version was registered by F. H. Ayres of London in October 1892: a spiral board of 100 squares with five snakes and five ladders. An 1888 edition is often quoted but cannot be verified. The American Chutes and Ladders followed in 1943.

**Where can I see historical Leela boards?**
Several museums hold them. The British Library has the 72-square Vaishnava chart from Lucknow, c. 1780 to 1782. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a Jain gyanbazi and the 1892 Ayres board. The British Museum holds a 342-square Pahari board from the Punjab Hills.

**Did Harish Johari invent the rules of Leela?**
Partly, perhaps. Historical boards carry no written rules, and the old rules are reconstructed from texts and observation. Schmidt-Madsen notes that some of Johari's rules, such as starting unborn on 68 and needing a six to be born, "might very well have been of his own invention".