Who needs hi-tech or even flashcards when rocks, seeds and animals can help teach kids math? Yes, this National Mathematics Day we’re talking old-fashioned board games - still embraced by rural India - that sharpen brains and are fun to play.
When Kreeda founder Vinita Sidhartha’s children were little, her grandmother babysat them. What did they play? Old fashioned board games, of course. She recalls her then four-year-old saying he knew everything in math class as he already knew how to count and add.
“He’d been playing Paramapadam (also called Moksha Patam or Vaikuntapali), which is the traditional version of Snakes & Ladders. You learn your numbers as you play and throw the dice. You think, I’m on 27, I’ve thrown a four, I have to go to 31. Beyond a point it becomes almost instinctive.”
Games like Pagade (or Pachisi), Ali Guli Mane or Mancala, and Chowka Bhara introduce children to strategy and reasoning skills. These are all rooted in rural India, like the now famous Mancala, based on sowing and reaping, also known as the popular Pallanguzhi, played across Tamil Nadu even today.
“Most ancient Indian games require mathematical calculations for making the moves. From all these, I would rate Pallanguzhi as the most mathematical game,“ remarks Mital Salia, an author, game therapist and founder of Khel Khel Mein.
“Most ancient games are two-player strategy games. The best part about them is that you can draw the board anywhere and all you need is seeds to play them. The most unique of all are the hunt games, where both the players have different powers and a different number of pawns, such as the games Goats and Tigers, Fox and the Geese,” she says.
Salia has been researching games for the last 11 years and uses games for life skills development and mental wellness across ages. She also runs a special ancient board game club.
“The famous game Nine Men’s Morris was played across various Indian states, known by different names such as Naukankari, Bharat, The Mill, etc. Pachisi or Chaupar was the ancient version of Ludo and is mentioned in the Mahabharata, too,” she adds.
In fact, the early 20th century mathematician Ramanujan, on whose birth anniversary National Mathematics Day is celebrated on December 22, was known to revel in playing the game Goats and Tigers with his mother, as mentioned in Robert Kanigel’s book, The Man Who Knew Infinity – A Life of the Genius Ramanujan.
Kanigel writes, “When he was young, the two of them duelled at Goats and Tigers, played with pebbles on a grid resembling a perspective view of railroads tracks receding to the horizon, crossed by other tracks perpendicular to them. Three ‘tigers’ sought to kill fifteen ‘goats’ by jumping them, as in checkers, while the goats tried to encircle the tigers, immobilising them. The game demanded logic, strategy, and fierce, chess-like concentration. The two of them revelled in it.”
The game of Goats and Tigers is known as Aadu Puli Aatam in Tamil Nadu, Huli Gatta in Karnataka and Puli Joodam or Puli-Meka in Andhra Pradesh. Sidhartha remarks, “If Ramanujan can play Aadu Puli Aatam, why not us? We may not become mathematicians like him, but we can follow his illustrious footsteps.”
What makes traditional games unique, she believes, is the fact that they’re fairly simple to pick up.
Playing dice is a lot like probability. It’s about predicting outcomes, right? It’s a mathematical concept you’re expressing
she says.
She gives the example of a game played by blowing tamarind seeds in the air. The person who catches the most wins. As children count, they arrange them in pairs or odds and evens. “So, who has more, who has less? Who did it faster, slower? This is all maths. And verbalising mathematical concepts is a huge part of playing these games.” The grids on our boards, she adds, are geometry in play, with vertical, horizontal or diagonal lines cutting across a circular or square board.
Board games like this are visual mathematics. Which is why Prof M. Prabavathy and her research scholar R. Sivaranjani chose the game for their paper “Utilising Traditional Game-Pallanguzhi as a Tool to Enhance the Basic Arithmetic Skill of Children with Mathematical Difficulties,” as part of a doctoral thesis.
Dr M Prabavathy, Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Differently Abled Persons at Bharathidasan University, Khajamalai campus, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu remembers playing Pallanguzhi as a child growing up in the town of Ramanathapuram. The university covers eight districts, with children coming from rural areas as well. For the two-month project, which was conducted a year-and-a-half ago and involved children with intellectual disabilities, a group of 10 children were selected to play the game of Pallanguzhi for around 40 minutes every day along with their regular curriculum.
“We believe that through play even a disabled child can learn. In Pallanguzhi, one has to place six coins in one hole. They can also pick coins from the adjacent hole. They have to keep count, too. At first, because of fine motor skill challenges, they were not able to hold the coins or place them in corresponding holes.”
“So, initially, we made the circles bigger and explained the concept of numbers. We had to explain that one plus one is two. Bit by bit, they learnt. The ones who learnt faster were made peer tutors to help the others,” she says.
Prabavathy and Sivaranjani have trained 15 teachers so far to replicate the programme in special schools. Prabavathy has also used traditional games like Kallankal or the Five Stones game in an effort to create an environment for “joyful learning”. Here, similar to the tamarind seed game, stones are thrown up in the air, and one has to collect as many as possible before they hit the ground.
So, if you’re wondering how to teach your child maths – while having fun – a good old board game could do the trick, cutting across generations and costing a lot less than high-tech alternatives.
The lead image on top shows a mother and child playing the traditional game of Pallanguzhi. (Photo courtesy of Kreeda)
Anuradha Varma is a journalist and Mindset Coach. She hosts the podcast Swishing Mindsets.
