An Indian in Australia is Trying to Revive a Old Hindu Card Game Played Centuries ago

A Rare and historic form of Playing Cards in India hundreds of years ago known as Ganjifa inspired by Hindu mythology are making a comeback courtesy Kickstarter, one of the world’s best crowdfunding platform.

An initiative taken by Sunish Chabba, resident of Sydney, Australia, to revive the traditional craft of Ganjifa and the card games that were said to be most popular 17th Century onwards, came into force as an idea for a design challenge to revive lost or almost forgotten traditional arts & crafts (of India ) while pursuing a course on Design thinking/Human Centered Design. The challenge statement led him to the lost craft of Ganjifa playing cards and it felt like an interesting subject to take up. According to Sunish,the intent of this initiative is to combine form & function of such art forms and make those available & accessible to everyone with the hope of kicking off the revival. This attempt is to raise awareness among the public so that the knowledge of the Indian Ganjifa cards and the games that are played with them will not be lost.

From historical and literary records, Ganjifa cards are known to have been in use in Persia during the European renaissance. These were introduced by the Mughal invaders in India in the 16th century.  During the later 16th and early 17th centuries, the cards spread to various parts of India and evolved into new forms. One such form was the Dashavatara Ganjifa, which depicts ten incarnations or avatars of Lord Vishnu.  According to Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu when revealing himself in opposition to evil chose these human and animal appearances. From the 17th century onwards, Dashavatara Ganjifa became the most popular card game in Rajasthan, Bengal, Nepal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. According to ganjifa-kishor.com “In Maharashtra and Orissa, it was a widespread Brahmin pastime. A later Brahmin rationalization of this pursuit was the notion that the performance of the game is pleasing to God. Around 1885 Hari Krishna Venkataramana argued that by playing the Vishnu memoriser game, sins are washed away. It is said in the Bhapwatam that by invoking the name of Vaikuntha by gestures and even by way of joking or abuse, sins are made to wash away. If the name of God is used during the game saying “your Rama did this” or your Brahma did that” or “your Narasimha lost and my Matsya won” then, by this repetion of God’s name sins are remitted. “

The Ganjifa Art has been dying out in India, due to lack of interest and awareness with just a handful of people who know the craft of designing the cards by hand and even a lesser number who know how to play any game with Ganjifa cards.

The project is named Guru Ganjifa and is based on Dashavatara Ganjifa, and may be the only form of this Ganjifa variant ever produced with modern printing methods and sold in the West.  Guru Ganjifa is a 100% custom illustrated deck of 130 cards based on traditional Indian Playing Cards known as Ganjifa with inspiration from Indian Mythology (Dashavatara) and Madhubani (Mithila) artform.  It is for collectors, card players, artists, Indian mythology and history enthusiasts or students and everyone in between.

It comes with a booklet containing reference on the history of Ganjifa and rules for different card games (both traditional & invented) that can be played using this artful deck of cards.  Sunish was able to get in touch & collaborate with art patrons, playing card collectors, car gamers, historians etc. from different countries and still feels quite grateful of the support he got from everyone on various aspects of the project.

Expert Playing Card Company will be producing this deck with the highest quality standards on a premium Casino graded card stock making it a true collector’s delight. Each pledge on the Kickstarter campaign includes free worldwide shipping.

What is Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform that helps bring creative projects to life. Think of Kickstarter as a place where you can help support a project like this and in return you are offered a series of rewards depending on your pledge. Once you’ve chosen what type of reward you would like to receive, Kickstarter will ask you to register in order to record your pledge. They will safely set up your payment but you will ONLY be billed at the end of the campaign IF this project reaches its funding goal. Remember, if the project isn’t fully funded during our Kickstarter campaign, you won’t be charged a dime (and, unfortunately, the deck won’t be published). You can always go back and change or cancel your reward level before the campaign ends.

With the funding goal achieved, Sunish will be able to  take the idea to production for the first print run of 1000 decks and get this beautifully crafted deck across to all of you out there with the sole aim of conserving and reviving the rich legacy of Ganjifa cards. The campaign ends on June 21, 2016.

For more information, check this link below: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sunishchabba/guru-ganjifa-playing-cards-from-historyrevisited

How you can help Guru Ganjifa?

There are pledge levels starting from $1 AUD (Australian Dollars) with different reward tiers available to get single or multiple decks. All of the reward tiers come with free worldwide shipping.

$1 AUD ~ Rs. 50. The campaign ends on June 21st, and the funding goal to be achieved is $35000 AUD. Sunish can be reached at for any question on the campaign. Please support this unique and worthwhile project on kickstarter here and be proud of Indian legacy.