sugoroku (双六) (genre 1300 –)

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Biography:

There originally were two different 'games' that went by the term sugoroku. The older of the two, introduced in the 7th century, was played very much like backgammon is today. It was referred to as ban sugoroku (盤双六/盤雙六) or 'board sugoroku'. Objects like black and white stones were used to make moves. Originally this 'game' was meant as a reminder or as instructive of Buddhist teachings: the road to Hell or to the Western Paradise. Apparently this game did not survive into the modern era, even though there is one of them deposited in the 8th century Shōsōin Treasure House (正倉院).

The Retired Emperor Shirakawa (後白河 - 1053-1129) who lived in a particularly turbulent age wrote:

The flow of the Kamo River,
the roll of the sugoroku dice
and the mountain monks [of Enryakuji]
are things I cannot control.

Mikael S. Adolphson quoted the above poem in an article, 'Myōun and the Heike', in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 47/2: 191 in footnote #5. He added in the text above: "The lack of focus on Myōun [明雲 - 1115–1183] is perhaps not surprising, especially among scholars of Buddhism, for he left no Buddhist legacy in the form of treatises or commentaries that we know of. And yet, he served as head abbot at the powerful Tendai monastic complex of Enryakuji 延暦寺 longer than most of his predecessors, owing in large part to his popularity among a clergy that was infamously said to be as difficult to control as the flow of the Kamo River and dice."

Jingyi Yuan wrote in 'Blurring the Boundary between Play and Ritual: Sugoroku Boards as Portable Cosmos in Japanese Religion', Oberlin College, 2021: " Both types of sugoroku carry cosmological meanings and religious functions, as both serve as anchor points connecting the religious realm and the ordinary world."

The later form of the game was referred to as e-sugoroku or 'Picture Sugoroku'. Again, it may have started out in the role of religious instructions and/or warnings. In time it morphed into a popular travel game used often by children, but could also be played by adults. It was especially popular during the Edo period and was produced in what must have been the tens of thousands of variations.

Yuan later wrote on page 3: "With the decline of the Japanese backgammon, since the seventeenth century until today, the term sugoroku generally referred to another game, e-sugoroku 絵双六 (picture sugoroku). E-sugoroku is a racing game similar to Snakes and Ladders. Originally designed with a Buddhist theme, e-sugoroku later developed to include popular themes such as kabuki actors and famous places (meisho 名所). The history of Buddhist e-sugoroku can be traced at least to the fifteenth century, but the game became popularized in the seventeenth century with increased use of woodblock printing technology. Unfortunately, those late medieval-period copies of Buddhist e-sugoroku did not survive."

On pages 4-5 Yuan makes it clear how different the two forms of sugoroku are and also discussed the layout of the older, backgammon-like game: "If studied as board games, the two types of sugoroku are radically different in terms of their materials, layouts and rules... ...the ban-sugoroku board is in the shape of a wooden table or rectangular box. The top surface of the ban-sugoroku board is divided into three parallel sections, and the two outer fields of this tripartite design are divided further into twelve rectangular spaces. Game pieces include fifteen white and fifteen black stones. Players of ban-sugoroku use two hexahedron numeral dice to determine moves. They roll the dice in a bamboo tube and throw them onto the board. According to the numbers shown on the two dice, the player can either move two stones according to the point shown on each dice, or move only one stone as many squares as the total numbers shown on the two dice."

Yuan also suggests that the traditional older sugoroku game was used in divination. On pages 7-8 female mediums played it to insure a successful childbirth. She said: "Similarly,in a type of banquet held in celebration of the birth of a new royal child (ubuyashinai 産養), guests played ban-sugoroku." Yuan then pointed out that "...Karen Gerhart suggest that the game might be a form of fortune-telling or serve to ward off malicious spirits." It was played to cure illnesses, and it worked supposedly. Even Buddhist themed e-sugoroku wove ritual and play together so that one could not be separated from the other.

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In a 1920 Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, an ethnographer, Stewart Cullen wrote about both forms of sugoroku, but, in our opinion, gave more weight to a description of the backgammon type of which we know very few of the details, while giving short shrift to the more modern 'picture' type.

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The older board form of the game of sugoroku was often banned because it was considered gambling. "Winning at sugoroku is dependent on chance and the roll of the dice, and therefore associated with betting and gambling. Since the late seventh century, it was an extremely popular pastime amongst all social classes. So addictive was this game that the court passed a prohibition against playing sugoroku in 689, and again in 754. The 754 edict, for example, prohibited sugoroku because the officials and peasants alike were too engrossed in the game and becoming deluded. The popularity of the game is borne out by its regular depiction in medieval picture scrolls..."

Quoted from: 'Twanging Bows and Throwing Rice: Warding Off Evil in Medieval Japanese Birth Scenes' by Yui Suzuki, Artibus Asiae, vol. LXXIV, no. 1, 2014, pages 24 ff.

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The name sugoroku 双六 literally translates "twin sixes" and probably derives from the two six-faced dice rolled to determine game play.

Picture sugoroku 絵双六 was first seen in Japan around the 13th Century but became extremely popular during the Edo period due to inexpensive but elaborate woodblock printmaking. Similar to chutes and ladders games, sugoroku continued to be popular throughout the Meiji and later periods. Children's magazines frequently included sugoroku as inserts.