WRITTEN BY LONDON SWAMINATHAN

Post No. 8797

Date uploaded in London – –10 OCTOBER 2020   

Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com

Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge; this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.

tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com

Hindus divided the ages into four. They are called Krta Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga and Kali Yuga.

Of these two are based on Numbers  Treta =3 and Dwapra=2. Of the four Ages/Yugas Krta is the first and so it must be Four (4). So they are in descending order 4,3,2,1. But Kali yuga is  1 and 0.

The reason for this descending order is given in Dharma Shastras/ Hindu Law Books. They imagined Dharma as a cow with four legs. In the first age which is called as Satya Yuga, Golden Yuga etc Dharma was described a cow with four legs. In Treta Yuga it lost 25% of dharma/honesty and so it is named Number 3. In Dwapara Yuga it lost 50% of honesty, i.e. two legs/feet. So it is Dwapara (2) Yuga. In Kaliyuga , Dharma lost one more feet and so only one foot, I.e.25%  alone is left. In other words Dharma is on shaky foot.

So, Kali may be called 25% Yuga with one leg. It is struggling to preserve dharma. In other words it is going to lose.

When the world is finished Kaliyuga would have finished and  a new era would dawn. Hindus believed in cyclical time.

All these numbers are in gambling. We don’t know whether the Yugas came first or Gambling Numbers came first.

Here is the jargon in gambling:

Dicing is mentioned as a game from the time of the Rig Veda onwards. 2000 year old Sangam Tamil literature mentioned the dicing. When a Brahmin and a king played dicing they became angry and threw coins at one another. Then they came to compromise according to a verse in Purananuru. Post Sangam period has the Tamil Veda Titukkural which has a full chapter on Dyuta (Soothu in Tamil). Tamil word for dicing is derived from Sanskrit word Dyuta. This shows the 3000 year long history on this game. Manu and other law makers brand this game as a vice. Whole of India knew that the greatest epic of Hindus , Mahabharata is based on dicing.

2700 year old Ashtadhyayi of Panini mentioned it in 4-4-19 and 3-3-37 Aksha Dyuta or simply Dyuuta.

Panini and Patanjali give more details and more words regarding this game. We see them in Mahabharata as well.

Nowadays two pieces are used to play this game. But in the ancient period, five coins/pieces  were used according to Taittiriya Brahmana . Vedic Index gives the names of five pieces as :–

Aksharaja, Krita ,Treta ,Dwapara and Kali .

From the period of Panini till the latest commentary Kasika , they used Paanchikaa Dyuuta.

Gambler was called Kitava . When all the five pieces fall with faces turned upwards, or all the five pieces fall face down the thrower wins the game; when the fall is otherwise , he loses it.

When four pieces fall alike and one is different, the dicer exclaims

Akshapari

Salakaa pari

Ekapari

It means missed by one aksha or a by a single salaka.

If the throw fell amiss  by two, it is called dwipari, three -tripri and four- chatuspari

When all the five pieces fell uniformly the throw was called a winning throw and the technical term for it is

Krita ; the name for the losing throw is Kali .

Buddhist Veda Dhammapada called a deceitful player kitavo satho. He tries to conceal his losing or kali throw- verse 252-. Chandogya Upanishad also called the winning throw krita.

In the sabhaparva of Mahabharata sakuni is described  by vidura as krita—hasta- man of winning throws.

Panini also mentioned krita and kali throws 3-1-21

Vidura pandita Jataka tale –545—used the same words.

Later only four pieces were used

But whether it is 4 pieces or five pieces, Krita meant win and Kali meant loss.

We get more information from Mahabharata that it is played in Sabhas (sort of Casinos) . Kautilya also confirms it.

Panini even mentioned wager or stake money – satasya divyati ,satasya pratidivyati- 2-3-57, 2-3-59 all denoting he stakes a hundred rupees.

This shows that India had decimal coin/currency system 2700 years ago, even before the Greeks .

-tags– Dice, Dice pieces, Krita, Kali

–subham–