The collection
Thirty-seven boards, and no two of them agree
The school teaches from boards it owns: the personal collection of Evgeny Nemolyaev, gathered over years. They were painted by hand on cloth, canvas and paper in India and Nepal, and each one lays the game out in its own way. Reading them against each other is how the tradition is learned rather than retold.
The game travelled under several names, and the catalogue records them: Gyan Chaupar, the board of knowledge; Paramapada Sopanam, the ladder to the highest place; Nagapasa, as it is known in Nepal. In English it became Snakes and Ladders.
The squares differ from board to board, and so do the snakes, and so does the count. That disagreement is not a problem to be tidied away: it is the subject. A facilitator who has only ever seen one board cannot tell you what the tradition holds in common and what one painter decided on his own.
01 Paramapada Sopanam
The ladder to the highest place
02 Parama Pada Sopanam
The ladder to the highest place
03 Leela
A syncretic version
04 Nagapasa
The Nepalese ladder to unity
05 Gyan Chaupar
06 Gyan Chaupar
07 Gyan Chaupar
The sacred geometry of Jain liberation
08 Snakes and Ladders
A tantric, Shakta version
09 Snakes and Ladders
A tantric, Shakta version
10 Gyan Chaupar
11 Leela
A tantric, Shakta version
12 Nagapasa
The Nepalese ladder of cross-cultural synthesis
13 Gyan Chaupar
14 Snakes and Ladders
15 Snakes and Ladders
16 Nepalese Leela, Nagapasa
17 Nepalese Leela, Nagapasa
18 The Jain Snakes and Ladders
Leela-Purusha
19 Gyan Chaupar
20 Nepalese temple Leela, Nagapasa
21 Nepalese temple Leela, Nagapasa
22 Leela
The mandala of liberation
23 Nepalese Leela, Nagapasa
24 Nepalese Leela, Nagapasa
25 Nepalese Leela, Nagapasa
26 Gyan Chaupar
Jain cosmology as a game
27 Gyan Chaupar
A field of spiritual trials and lessons
28 Gyan Chaupar
Celestial chariots and the divine threads of fate
29 Gyan Chaupar
A field of trials with Ganesha as protector
30 Snakes and Ladders
31 Gyan Chaupar
A rare pyramidal composition
32 Nepalese Leela, Nagapasa
33 Gyan Chaupar
The sacred geometry of Jain liberation
34 Leela, with the squares named in Russian
Inscribed at the foot: a commission for Andrey and Anastasia
35 Nagapasa
Om Namah Shivaya written twice across the head of the board
36 Gyan Chaupar, beneath a reading hand
37 Gyan Chaupar, with the domed pavilions
Photographed for the exhibition The Mystery of Leela: a history of snakes and ladders. The boards are listed by name only: measurements and dates are not given, because the dating of a hand-painted board is rarely certain.