‘You are lucky, Sanjaya. I have seen tables where the grid was triangular — where the dice would nestle exactly into each triangle. Those grids are hard to follow.’
Charvaka shuffled off leaving Sanjaya to examine the grid. He returned with two boxes, one full of the gold dice; the other with small round ivory pieces. All of these circular counters were marked with a single dot at their centre; but some in addition had concentric circles around the dot. Sanjaya was obviously puzzled by them.
‘You know of course they used to stake gems and small valuables on the table,’ said Charvaka. ‘In recent times the fashion seems to have been to use counters to stand in their place. Many of the kshatriyas dislike this practice. The brahmanas rather like it, though: they are embarrassed to be seen ha
