This preprint examines the historical and philosophical lineage of the Indian moral-spiritual board game commonly known as Moksha Patam or Gyan Chaupar and places it in dialogue with the contemporary DharmYatra game concept. The paper reviews competing origin narratives, including the popular attribution to Sant Dnyaneshwar, while adopting a more cautious historiographical approach based on surviving archival and museum evidence. It traces the evolution of the game through regional and sectarian variants, including Vaishnava, Jaina, and later colonial transformations into Snakes and Ladders and Chutes and Ladders. The study also explores how the original board functioned as a pedagogical device that linked play, ethics, consequence, virtue, vice, ascent, and liberation. In addition, the paper reflects on the continuing afterlife of the snakes-and-ladders metaphor in modern educational, cultural, and motivational settings. DharmYatra is positioned as a contemporary reactivation of this older Indian idea that play can serve as pedagogy, self-reflection, and cultural transmission. This version is released as a preprint for open access dissemination, citation, and further scholarly development.
Ashmika Agarwal (Mon,) studied this question.