If this image is any indication, pachisi seems pretty darn important if they are willing to put deific (?) figures in the art depicting its play. It’s also interesting that many of the pachisi illustrations depict women playing the game, which seems to say that women often had leisure time, the game was gender neutral, and/or was easily accessible. While admittedly I’m not that much of an Indian historian, if India is anything like much of the world women likely didn’t have the same kind of social status as men did. These two ideas sets up an interesting narrative for how games (pachisi especially) were seen and functioned at this period in time.

It’s interesting to see how games and gender function across history, especially what kinds of games have been determined either masculine or feminine. Like with how morals were/are expressed in board games, gender roles are often expressed didactically through how males and females function within the games context or, as mentioned, what games are targeted at males or females. I’m not familiar with enough older games to make any broad claims about them, certainly modern games follow this trend fairly close; many are certainly less intentionally didactic than they’re historic counterparts they still set up these themes.