Indian Subcontinent · Race Game · 2–4 Players
How to Play Pachisi
Pachisi is India's royal race game, documented in the Mahabharata and played across the subcontinent for at least 1,500 years. Four players race pieces around a cross-shaped board using cowrie shell dice, sending opponents back to start and sheltering pieces on safe castle squares. The ancestor of Ludo and Parcheesi — but far richer than either.
The Board
The board is a large cross shape with a central home space. Each arm of the cross has an outer track and a home column. Players race their pieces clockwise around the outer track, then up their home column into the centre.
Castle squares are marked squares on the board where pieces are safe from capture. Multiple pieces of different colours may share a castle square simultaneously.
The Cowrie Shell Dice
Pachisi uses 6 cowrie shells thrown together. Count how many land opening-side up:
| Openings up | Move | Extra throw? |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 25 spaces | Yes |
| 1 | 10 spaces | Yes |
| 2 | 2 spaces | No |
| 3 | 3 spaces | No |
| 4 | 4 spaces | No |
| 5 | 5 spaces | No |
| 6 | 6 spaces | No |
Throws of 0 (25) and 1 (10) earn a bonus throw.
Entering and Moving Pieces
- Each player has 4 pieces (beehives), all starting in the centre home space.
- To enter a piece onto the board, you must throw a 6, 10, or 25.
- Pieces move clockwise around the outer track, starting from your entry space.
- Once a piece has completed the full circuit, it moves up your home column toward the centre.
- A piece re-enters the home centre by landing exactly on it — no overshooting.
Capturing
If you land on a space occupied by an opponent's piece (and it is not a castle square), the opponent's piece is sent back to the centre and must re-enter the board. You cannot capture your own pieces.
Landing on a castle square always gives safety — no capture is possible there, regardless of how many pieces are present.
Winning
The first player to move all 4 pieces into the centre home space wins. Each piece must travel the full circuit and land exactly on the home space.
Strategy Tips
- Enter pieces early. Getting multiple pieces into play gives you more options each turn and makes it harder for opponents to target you.
- Use castle squares as staging posts. Cluster pieces at castles to advance safely in groups.
- Target vulnerable stragglers. An opponent's lone piece far from a castle is worth chasing — sending it back wastes several of their future turns.
Cultural Context
Pachisi has been played on the Indian subcontinent for at least 1,500 years. Its name derives from pacīs, the Hindi word for 25 — the highest throw. The Mahabharata describes a fateful dice game resembling Pachisi, played with human pieces, that triggered a kingdom's downfall.
The Mughal Emperor Akbar was famously devoted to Pachisi. He had a giant court built at Fatehpur Sikri in the 1560s where palace servants dressed in colored uniforms served as living game pieces, directed by Akbar and his courtiers from a high throne at the board's centre. European visitors' accounts of this spectacle helped spread knowledge of the game westward.
When British colonists adapted the game in the 1860s, they replaced the cowrie shells with a numbered teetotum (spinner) and simplified the rules into Parcheesi — and later Ludo. Both remain best-selling games today, but neither matches the strategic depth and drama of the original.
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