Ganjifa
Encyclopedia
Ganjifa, or Gânjaphâ, is a card game
that originated in Persia and became popular in India
under the Mughal
emperors in the 16th century.
word ganjifeh (گنجفه), meaning playing card
. The first known reference is in an early-16th century biography of Bâbur
, the founder of the Mughal dynasty.
The game first became popular at court, in the form of lavish sets of precious stone-inlaid ivory or tortoise shell (darbar kalam). It later spread to the general public, whereupon cheaper sets (bazâr kalam) would be made from materials such as wood
, palm leaf, or pasteboard.
Ganjifa cards are circular and traditionally hand-made by local artisan
s. The suits are composed of twelve subjects on coloured backgrounds, with pip cards running from 1 to 10, and two court cards, one of a minister or counselor, the other of a king. The precise style and arrangement of the decoration on any set is dependent on its artist. The designs of the cards of Dashavatara Ganjifa use motif
s from the ten Avatar
s of Vishnu
.
described Ganjifa with the following comments:
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
that originated in Persia and became popular in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
under the Mughal
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
emperors in the 16th century.
Description
The name Ganjifa comes from the PersianPersian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
word ganjifeh (گنجفه), meaning playing card
Playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...
. The first known reference is in an early-16th century biography of Bâbur
Babur
Babur was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of South Asia. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother...
, the founder of the Mughal dynasty.
The game first became popular at court, in the form of lavish sets of precious stone-inlaid ivory or tortoise shell (darbar kalam). It later spread to the general public, whereupon cheaper sets (bazâr kalam) would be made from materials such as wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, palm leaf, or pasteboard.
Ganjifa cards are circular and traditionally hand-made by local artisan
Artisan
An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
s. The suits are composed of twelve subjects on coloured backgrounds, with pip cards running from 1 to 10, and two court cards, one of a minister or counselor, the other of a king. The precise style and arrangement of the decoration on any set is dependent on its artist. The designs of the cards of Dashavatara Ganjifa use motif
Motif (art)
In art, a motif is an element of a pattern, an image or part of one, or a theme. A motif may be repeated in a design or composition, often many times, or may just occur once in a work. A motif may be an element in the iconography of a particular subject or type of subject that is seen in other...
s from the ten Avatar
Avatar
In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
s of Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
.
Features
In 1895, General Albert Houtum-SchindlerAlbert Houtum-Schindler
General Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler was a scholar of Persia and an employee of the Persian government.- Career :...
described Ganjifa with the following comments:
- "The word ganjifeh is in Persian now only employed for European playing-cards (four suits, ace to ten; three picture cards each suit), which, however, are also called rarak i âs - rarak i âsanâs - or simply âs, from the game âs or âsanâs. From travellers to Persia in the seventeenth century we know that a set of ganjifeh consisted of ninety or ninety-six cards in eight suits or colors. At present a set consists of twenty cards in five colors or values. These values are:
- Shîr va Khurshíd or âs: Lion and Sun, or Ace.
- Shâh or Pishâ: King.
- Bîbî: Lady (or Queen).
- Sarbâs: Soldier (or Knave).
- Lakat (meaning something of little value): generally a dancing-girl.
- The backs of the cards are always black or of a dark color, but their faces have grounds of different colors, viz: The Lion and Sun, a black ground; the King, a white ground; the Lady, red; the soldier, gold; the Lakat, green. The pictures on the cards show much variety and are often obscene, particularly those on the card of the lowest value. The ordinary types as now made are: Ace, a Lion and Sun, as in the Persian arms; a King sitting on a throne; a European lady in a quaint costume; a Persian soldier shouldering his rifle; a Persian dancing-girl."
Rules
Houtum-Schindler described the rules as follows:- "The word ganjifeh I have explained. Âs is no doubt our word "ace", probably introduced into India through the Portuguese. Neither of the words is found in Persian dictionaries. The game of As is exactly like Poker, but without any flushes or sequences. There are four players, and each player gets five cards, dealt to the right. The dealer puts down a stake. The first player then looks at his cards. If he "goes", he says dîdam (I have seen), and covers the stake or raises it. If he does not wish to play, he says nadîdam, (I have not seen) and throws his cards. He may also "go" without looking at his cards - that is, in pokerPokerPoker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
parlance, "straddle" - and says nadîd dîdam (not seeing, I have seen). The second player, if he wishes to play, must cover the stakes, and can also raise. The third player and the dealer then act in the same way just as in poker, and when the stakes of all players are equal and no one raises any more the cards are turned up and the player holding the best hand wins the stakes.
- The hands in the order of their value are as follows:
- She va just, i.e., three and a pair; a "full"., i e., three and a pair; a "full."
- Sehta, i.e. threes, aces, kings, etc.
- Do just, i.e., two pairs; aces highest.
- Just, i.e., one pair; aces highest.
- When two players have the same pair or pairs, the other cards decide; for instance, a pair of kings, ace, soldier, and lakat.
- "Bluffing" is a feature of the game and is called tûp zadan, literally "fire off a gun". A bluff is tûp."
Variants
- Moghul Ganjifa is played in some parts of OrissaOrissaOrissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
with 96 cards in 8 suits of 12 cards each; each suit is distinctively coloured and comprises ten pip cards from 1 to 10 and two court cards, a vizier and a king. - Dashavatara Ganjifa is played by three persons with 120 cards, mainly in Sawantwadi in Maharashta, although it is played by five persons in BishnupurBishnupur-Kingdoms:*Bishnupur kingdom in what is today Bankura District, Bengal, India.-CD Blocks:* Bishnupur, Bankura - in Bankura district, West Bengal* Bishnupur I - in South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal...
, West BengalWest BengalWest Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
. There are 10 suits of 12 cards each; the suits correspond to the ten avatars of Vishnu. The order of the suits (from lowest to highest) is: fish, tortoise, boar, lion (or half-man, half-lion), dwarf (looks like an umbrella in PySolPySolPySol is an open source and platform independent computer game that incorporates around 1,000 solitaire games, including card games and other types of single-player games.. It is written in the Python programming language. PySol was originated by Markus F.X.J...
), Rama with the axe, Rama (looks like a bow and arrow in PySolPySolPySol is an open source and platform independent computer game that incorporates around 1,000 solitaire games, including card games and other types of single-player games.. It is written in the Python programming language. PySol was originated by Markus F.X.J...
), Krishna (looks like a jellyfish in PySolPySolPySol is an open source and platform independent computer game that incorporates around 1,000 solitaire games, including card games and other types of single-player games.. It is written in the Python programming language. PySol was originated by Markus F.X.J...
), Buddha (looks like a flower in PySolPySolPySol is an open source and platform independent computer game that incorporates around 1,000 solitaire games, including card games and other types of single-player games.. It is written in the Python programming language. PySol was originated by Markus F.X.J...
), Kalki (looks like a Pegasus in PySolPySolPySol is an open source and platform independent computer game that incorporates around 1,000 solitaire games, including card games and other types of single-player games.. It is written in the Python programming language. PySol was originated by Markus F.X.J...
).
Literature
- Deodhar, A. B.; Illustrated Marathi Games; Bombay 1905
- Leyden, Rudolf von; The Playing Cards of South India; in: The Illustrated Weekly of India, 3. Okt. 1954
- Leyden, Rudolf von; The Indian Playing Cards of Francis Douce and the Ganjifa Folios in the Richard Johnson Collection; in: Bodleian Library Record, Oxford 1981, 10,5, p. 297-304
- Leyden, Rudolf von; Ganjifa - the playing cards of India … Victoria & Albert Museum collection; London 1982 (V&A Museum) [Exhibition catalogue]
- Leyden, Rudolf von; A Note on Certain Suit Signs in Indian Playing Cards; in: JCPS, 1974, vol. III/3 p. 33-36.
External links
- Games played with Ganjifa (Indian circular cards)
- Ganjifa Playing Cards of Orrisa
- Historical Notes: Ganjifa at Andy's Playing Cards
- A Right Royal Hand - an article on the decline of its popularity and surrounding arts (copy at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
) - Ganjifa - traditional playing cards of India