Ganjifa

There is an interesting article in Sunday's The Hindu newspaper about Ganjifa, traditional Indian playing cards. I love the idea that the Sun leads in the daytime, the Moon at night. In some games certain cards lead at different seasons, or times of day -- just as in the Indian classical music system of ragas, in which there are ragas for morning, early evening, rain...

THEY encircle a square of white cloth on the floor, playing cards in the afternoon.... [my ellipses] The collector deals out the used 96-card eight-suited Moghul Ganjifa from Sawantwadi in Maharashtra, four at a time. The historian begins the round, laying down a raja or Mir of the golden Surkh suit that represents the sun, escorted by a lower value attendant card. During the day, Surkh opens the game, but between dusk and dawn, the silvery Safed Mir, which represents the moon, has the privilege. At times, the Pradhan or minister on horseback of the strong Shamsher suit, representing a curved sword, wins the round. At others, a lower card of the Taj or crown suit sweeps up the others. In this no-trumps, no jacks, trick-making game, the winner is the one who collects the most cards, regardless of their value...

These cards... first crop up in the Indian annals when the Mughal ruler Babar sent a set to a friend in Sind in June 1527...

The recent round of Ganjifa ...links back to the elderly men who still play dashavatara Ganjifa of 16 suits with a 192-card pack around the temples of Puri. And further back to Emperor Akbar, who invented the game of 96 cards with eight suits of 12 cards each, now known as Moghul Ganjifa. ... Kishor N. Gordhandas, a Mumbai-based collector ... notes ... "The Hinduisation of Ganjifa must have contributed greatly to the spread of the game. Dashavatara Ganjifa depicting incarnations of Vishnu was the most popular card game in Rajasthan, Bengal, Nepal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka." ... The evocation of "your Rama did this" or "your Matsya lost and my Narasimhan won" was said to remit sins...

Today, the evolved craft of handmade Ganjifa languishes ...(more)

I looked around the Net for more information about Ganjifa, and found the website of Kishor Gordhandas, which includes pictures of different varieties of decks, historical notes, and General Rules for a Four-Handed Moghul Ganjifa Game with 96 Cards.

According to one article I found, Introduction of playing cards to Europe,

The current "best" theory of the origin of European playing-cards, is that they came from a region near Mameluks of Egypt....

Michael Dummett proposes that the Mameluke cards originated from the Indian card game of Ganjifa. It was played with circular cards (usually 8-12 suits, with 10 number and 2 court cards). Ganjifa was played in 16th century Persia as Ganjifeh. In Arabia it became known as Kanjifah (a word that appeared in an inscription on one of the circa 1400 Mameluke cards)...

There are more pictures and descriptions of Ganjifa cards here, here, here and here. (These pictures, of dashavatara cards, are from the World of Playing Cards, and are from the collection of Kishor Gordhandas.)