Para Sho (Tibetan Board Game)
Item
- Title (dcterms:title)
- Para Sho (Tibetan Board Game)
- Description (dcterms:description)
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Para Sho is a cherished traditional game in Tibetan culture, where players toss wooden dice into a bowl, blending the elements of luck and strategy. Often played during festivals and social gatherings, this game has been a source of joy and connection among Tibetan communities for generations.
The game is almost forgotten even in the Tibetan communities in India but a few players remain in Darjeeling and nearby regions. Three players were observed and the play experience documented at the Tibetan Refugee Centre in Darjeeling. The players play this game from 10 am to 5 pm every Sunday. The game is still played during Losar, the Tibetan new year.
The players often use Tibetan words that are specific to this game. - Rules (dcterms:instructionalMethod)
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This is a 3 player game. Each player has 9 coins and the board is made of 64 cowrie shells that are lined in a circular manner and the game starts before the first shell. Players throw two dice and move the coin according to the sum of the dice. Players who occupy the same position as the opponent's coin can send back the opponent's coin to the home shell. Stacked coins cannot be sent back unless the player's stack is higher.
Some points to note in this rather complex ruleset are are below:
At the first turn
Two coins will go into Start from Home
When the dice and 1 and 1: Three coins will go to the start
When the dice and 3 and 6: Three coins will go to the start
at ordinary turns
If a coin reaches home, another coin can come to the start. If the player does not move it, it will go back to the start
When the dice throw is 1 and 1: the player can move any coin to two squares or can throw the dice again and move the pieces with two added to the number that comes in the dice.
If the players displace the opponent's coin, they get another throw. When 1 and 1 are thrown three times, the player wins (para sho). It is not possible to stack all 9 dice,
- Source (dcterms:source)
- Documentation by Adrija Mukherjee and Souvik Mukherjee
- Contributor (dcterms:contributor)
- Tenzin
- Rights (dcterms:rights)
- Creative Commons
- Format (dcterms:format)
- Boardgame; documentary
- Medium (dcterms:medium)
- A dice cup, the Shophor; Plenty of sea shells, the Shobu or Dribu; A round pad stuffed with Yak hair wool, the Shoten; An underlay as buffer when the Shophor with the dice inside hits the Shoten: usually a saddle rug or Taden; Two dice, the Sho;Three different sets of coins (9 per set) for each player - the Lakhay
- Spatial Coverage (dcterms:spatial)
- Tibet; Darjeeling; Kalimpong; Sikkim
- Entered by (dcterms:accrualMethod)
- Souvik Mukherjee
