Pallanguzhi

Pallanguzhi is a traditional South Indian mancala played on a board with 7 cups per side and 6 shells in each cup (84 total). Capture the most shells to win.

1. Your turn: click any highlighted cup in your row (bottom) that has shells.
2. All shells from that cup are lifted and distributed one-by-one counter-clockwise around the board.
3. Capture-on-4: if the last shell lands in a cup that now holds exactly 4, capture all 4 into your store. Sowing then continues from the next available cup.
4. Continue sowing: if the last shell lands in a non-empty cup (not 4), pick up all shells there and continue sowing.
5. Empty-cup capture: if the last shell lands in a cup that was empty, check the directly opposite cup. If it has shells, capture them into your store. Your turn then ends.
6. Win condition: when a player's row is empty, all remaining shells are swept to their owners' stores. The player with the most shells wins.

Full rules guide & cultural history →

Pallanguzhi (பல்லாங்குழி) takes its name from the Tamil words pala (many) and kuzhi (pits) - literally "many pits," for the two rows of seven hollows scooped into the board. The image was old enough by the sixth century that a Pallava copper-plate grant of King Simhavarman (c. 550 CE) could describe a garden pocked with planting holes as pallankuzhi-ka - a household word borrowed from a board everyone already knew. Across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Sri Lanka it is known by many names; in Karnataka and Andhra it becomes Ali Guli Mane, Vamana Guntalu or Kuzhipara.

Boards were carved in oiled teak and jackwood, and heirloom sets came in sandalwood, ivory, even silver; Chettinad brass boards stand on clawfoot legs hung with little bells. The British Museum holds a Tamil board shaped as two hinged fish whose halves fold shut over the pits to keep the counters safe - a folding form still carved in Tamil Nadu today. The pieces are humble by contrast: cowrie shells, glossy tamarind seeds, or the scarlet manjadi seeds that also fill the great offering bowl at the Guruvayur temple in Kerala.

Pallanguzhi was largely a women's and children's game, played on the thinnai - the raised verandah of a house - and famously used to stay awake through the night-long vigil of Shivaratri, players calling out "pasu!" as they swept a capture into their store. Today the Chennai-based Kreeda games revival (founded 2002) keeps it in print, while the Tamil diaspora has carried it to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Trinidad and Guyana, where it sits in the same wider mancala family as the Malay congkak and the Filipino sungka.