1895.] Haraprasad Shastri— Visnupm-Circular Cards. 285 
privilege of either leading again or calling a lead. As long as there are 
kings and ministers in the leader’s hand they must he played. After 
the kings and ministers of a hand are exhausted, plain cards may he led, 
though other players may have kings and ministers in their hands. 
After the game is over the cards of each player are counted. The 
player who has more than 24 cards, gets one pice, or one anna, or one 
rupee, according to the stake, for each card above 24 j and one who has 
less than 24, pays at the same rate. 
t '• • . 
Antiquity op the G-ame. 
Tradition has it that the Malla kings of Visnupur invented this 
game when they were in the -zenith of their glory. The Malla Rajas 
have left behind them an era of which 1201 corresponds to 1895 A.D., 
and I fully believe that the game was invented about eleven or twelve 
hundred years before the present date. The reasons for my supposing 
so are these: 
(1) In the orthodox list of the ten incarnations Buddha’s place 
is the ninth. But in the order of the cards, he has the fifth place 
assigned to him, or rather, he is one of the first five, having four hands. 
The antiquity of the orthodox list goes back to Jayadeva in the 12th 
and to Ksemendra in the 11th century. These cards must therefore 
have been invented before the formation of the orthodox list, at a time 
when Buddha was regarded as an incarnation, but held a place in the 
list different from that now assigned to him. The reason for giving 
him the fifth place may be well surmised. Buddha, as represented 
in the card, is an unformed mass, with only a human head and human 
hands. He may, therefore, very well come between the Man-lion, which 
is half man and half animal, and the dwarf, who is a complete man, 
but not fully developed. And so in the gradual development from the 
lowest animal to the most fully developed human being, as represented 
in the list of incarnations, Buddha may very well occupy the fifth place. 
(2) The plain cards of Buddha are represented by lotuses. The 
cards must therefore have been invented when Buddha was known as 
Padmapani , and the lotus was the most striking of his emblems ; and this 
was when the Mahayana School was in the ascendant in Bengal, that 
is, during the reign of the Pala Kings from 800 to 1200 A.D., or a little 
earlier. I do not think there are three Bengalis, at the present moment, 
who can explain why the lotus is depicted on the minor cards of Buddha. 
J. i. 37 
