Origin
Moksha Patam is one of the oldest board games in human history, created in ancient India as early as the 2nd century BCE. The name translates to "The Ladder to Salvation", a game designed for moral and spiritual instruction.
Referenced in Dnyaneshwari, 13th centuryThe Philosophy of Karma
Every square on the board represents a state of being. The soul (Atman) begins at square 1, birth into the material world, and strives toward square 100: Moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
The dice represents Karma, the unpredictable consequences of our past actions. You do not choose what you roll. You can only choose how you walk the path.
Ladders: The Virtues
Ladders represent Dharma, righteous conduct. Virtues like faith (Shraddha), knowledge (Vidya), compassion (Daya), and devotion (Bhakti) elevate the soul rapidly toward liberation.
In the original game, there were fewer ladders than snakes, because the path of virtue is narrow and difficult.
Snakes: The Vices
Snakes represent Adharma, moral failings. Lust (Kama), anger (Krodha), greed (Lobha), pride (Mada), and attachment (Moha) drag the soul back down into suffering.
The most devastating fall: square 99 to 15. Even at the threshold of Moksha, the vice of ego can cast you almost back to the beginning.
The Great Fall: Square 99
This is the heart of the game's teaching. You are one step from liberation. But Kama (worldly desire) appears as a serpent. The lesson: spiritual progress is never guaranteed. Even the most advanced seeker can fall if they succumb to attachment at the final moment.
The Gita teaches: "The senses are so strong and turbulent, they can forcibly carry away the mind of even a person of discrimination."
How Snakes & Ladders Was Born
In the Victorian era, the British encountered Moksha Patam in colonial India. They brought it to England around 1892, stripped away all the spiritual philosophy, renamed the virtues and vices to generic "snakes and ladders," and marketed it as a children's game.
Milton Bradley introduced it to America in 1943 as Chutes and Ladders, removing even the snakes. The game that once taught the deepest truths about the human soul became a toy of pure chance.
This project restores the original.
The Board's Design
The 10×10 grid uses Boustrophedon numbering: the path snakes back and forth, left-to-right then right-to-left, just as an ox plows a field. This mirrors life itself: never a straight line, always winding, always turning.
Square 100 sits at the top-left corner. Moksha is not in the center or on a pedestal. It is found at the end of a long, serpentine journey.
From zero to the Moon's south pole, from cotton to fiber optics, from Sushruta's scalpel to Chandrayaan's instruments.
7,000 years of curiosity, invention, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge.
This game, Moksha Patam, is itself one of India's gifts: the world's first board game designed to teach, not just entertain.