Snakes and Ladders · History
Moksha Patam in India
Snakes and Ladders began in India as Moksha Patam, also called Gyan Chaupar, “the game of knowledge”. It is often credited to the 13th-century poet-saint Dnyaneshwar, though its true origin is uncertain. The final square stood for moksha — liberation of the soul.
Virtues and vices
On the old boards, ladders were virtues such as generosity, faith and humility, while snakes were vices such as anger, greed and lying. Good deeds lift you up; bad habits pull you down even after a long climb. Many boards had more snakes than ladders, a reminder that the path of goodness is the harder one.
A Victorian nursery game
The game travelled to England in the late 19th century and was sold as Snakes and Ladders from around the 1890s. Victorian boards kept the moral flavour, with pictures of virtues like diligence and kindness at the foot of ladders and faults like idleness and disobedience on the snakes’ heads.
Today
Today the sermon has faded and the laughter remains: it is many children’s very first board game. It has been redrawn under different names and pictures around the world, and teachers use it to explore counting and probability.