 A game of Pachisi on a cloth board | |
| Years active | Ancient India to present |
|---|---|
| Genres | |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Setup time | Negligible |
| Playing time | 30–60 minutes |
| Chance | Medium (dice rolling) |
| Age range | 4+ |
| Skills | Strategy, tactics, counting, probability |
| Synonyms | Twenty-Five |
Pachisi (/pəˈtʃiːzi/ pə-CHEE-zee, Hindustani: [pəˈtʃiːsiː]) is a cross and circle board game that originated in Ancient India. It is described in the ancient text Mahabharata under the name of "Pasha".[1] It is played on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross. A player's pieces move around the board based upon a throw of six or seven cowrie shells, with the number of shells resting with the aperture upward indicating the number of spaces to move.
The name of the game is derived from the Hindi word paccīs, meaning 'twenty-five', the largest score that can be thrown with the cowrie shells; thus this game is also known by the name Twenty-Five. There are other versions of this game where the largest score that can be thrown is thirty.
In addition to chaupar,[2] there are many versions of the game. Barjis (barsis) is popular in the Levant, mainly Syria, while Parchís is another version popular in Spain and northern Morocco.[3] Parqués is its Colombian variant. Parcheesi, Sorry!, and Ludo are among the many Westernised commercial versions of the game. The jeu des petits chevaux ('game of little horses') is played in France, and Mensch ärgere Dich nicht is a popular German variant. It is also possible that this game led to the development of the Korean board game Yunnori, through the ancient kingdom Baekje.
- ^ Finkel 2004, citing Falkener (1892, p 257) as the originator of the term.
- ^ Swiss Committee for UNICEF (1982). Games of the World. National Committees for UNICEF. pp. 28–29.
- ^ John Lux (11 August 2014). "Parcheesi in Tangier Morocco". Archived from the original on 2017-12-01.