Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c25.6

c25.6

**Games and Sports.** All this discipline and restriction of monastic life left some room for its lighter side, for games and sports which have their own appeal in human nature. A list of such permissible games and sports is given in the *Chullavagga* [i, 13, 2], which mentions even dancing with ladies, besides the following: "Games with eight or ten pieces; with tossing up; hopping over diagrams formed on the ground; removing substances from a heap without shaking the remainder; games of dice and trap ball; sketching rude figures; tossing balls; blowing trumpets; having matches at ploughing with mimic ploughs; tumbling, forming mimic wind-mills; guessing at measures; chariot races; archery matches; shooting marbles with fingers; guessing other people's thoughts; mimicking other people's acts; riding elephants, horses; driving carriages; swordsmanship; wrestling; boxing with fists; and spreading robes out as a stage on which girls were invited to dance." Perhaps the most significant items in this list are those relating to dancing and acting, suggestive of the Art of the Stage. As regards the admissibility of Gambling, we must recall its Vedic origins, showing that it has figured in all ages as a national indoor game of India. It found its way even into the severe and serious atmosphere of Nālandā. Archæological excavation has found there a gaming-die, and gaming dice in Monasteries Nos. 1 and 1*a* and at other Buddhist sites, proving that the austere monks gave in to such innocent recreations [*Arch. S. R.*, 1923-4, p. 74].