Serpents et échelles. Du jeu de hasard à l’expérience de la transcendance

Abstract

Snakes and Ladders is the Western and secular version of a game that has been played for millennia in India. It completely submits the player to the decision of the dice, and is, as such, a paragon of games of chance. The article presents the characteristics and history of this game. Both its narrative contents in its original cultural contexts, as well as the very principle of a game in which the player decides nothing, allow us to ask: is it a game? This question leads to another: what is a game? The exploration of the uses of Snakes and Ladders in its old forms reveals an aspect concealed by the contemporary version, stripped of its soteriological content, but whose effectiveness could partly be retained: the abandonment to the decisions of chance allows a simulated experience of transcendence.

Keywords

• Snakes and ladders
• Gyan Chaupar
• games of chance
• definitions of game
• transcendence