Ancient Indian Boardgames: Digital Documentation

Title (dcterms:title)

Bara- Guti

Description (dcterms:description)

The game of Bara Guti was recorded from an interview with an individual who was an office staff of the Archaeological Museum of Nalanda and he belonged to Patna. This board or the diagram of the board contains three concentric circles divided into eight parts by a diameter of four which meets at a twenty-four cross point. It is a two player game. According to Charu Chandra Das Gupta, there are similarities between this game and Pretwa/ Pretoa which is prevalent in Chapra district of Bihar and another game called Gol-Ekuish which was popular in the central province of Bihar. The difference is that in Gol-Ekuish, The board is of seven circles which is divided into six parts by a diameter of three and in case of Pretwa/Pretoa, the board consists of three circles divided into six parts by a diameter of three. At times even pretwa is played by twelve pieces or bara-guti, just the difference being that there are four circles instead of three in case of Bara-Guti.

Alternative Title (dcterms:alternative)

Pretwa, Pretoa, Gol Ekuish

Rules (dcterms:instructionalMethod)

12 cross-points on four contiguous radii belonging to each of them. Each player provides himself with twelve pieces of ballets which are placed at these twelve crosspoints. The rule of the game is that, at the beginning, one of the two rival players shifts one of his ballets to the centre which is the only vacant point; then his opponent shifts one of his ballets to the vacant cross-point. The usual rule of capturing a piece of the adversary by jumping over it to the next cross-point, if it is vacant, is followed, quite irrespective of whether the piece is on the diameter or on the circumference, for the pieces may be moved not only on the radii but also along the arcs of the circumference. In this way the player who can capture all the pieces of the opponent wins the game.

Creator (dcterms:creator)

Charu Chandra Das Gupta

Source (dcterms:source)

'A Few Types of Sedentary Games From Bihar' by Charu Chandra Das Gupta in Sedentary Games of India eds. Nirbed Ray and Amitabha Ghosh

Contributor (dcterms:contributor)

Charu Chandra Das Gupta

Rights (dcterms:rights)

Creative Commons

Format (dcterms:format)

Boardgames

References (dcterms:references)

'A Few Types of Sedentary Games From Bihar' by Charu Chandra Das Gupta in Sedentary Games of India

Bara Guti- Digital Ludemi Project

Spatial Coverage (dcterms:spatial)

Bihar

Variants (dcterms:isVersionOf)

Gol-Ekuish

Bara- Guti

Pretwa: Downloadable Boardgame

Pretwa

Entered by (dcterms:accrualMethod)

Adrija Mukherjee

Notes (foaf:status)

To note: The diagram of Bara-Guti and the description of the game is not matching exactly.

Tags (dcterms:conformsTo)

Bara-Guti

Alquerque

Sedentary Games

Bihar

Two-player

Capture

Guti