Tibet has many traditional games with origins dating up to 5,000 years ago.[1][2][3]
Traditional games
Rock carrying
There are various rock-lifting competitions in Tibet which center around participants who carry and maneuver rocks that are 150 kilograms (330 lb) or more.[4][3]
Board games
Gyiren
Gyiren is a popular Tibetan variation of
snooker which originated in India.[5][6]
Sho ( Tibetan : ཤོ ) is a traditional
race game in
Tibet, still common today.[7]
Its name is simply the Tibetan word for "
dice".[7] It is traditionally played for money and by men, with two to four players - three being the most common. With four players, the usual variant is to play as two teams of two, with the partners sitting opposite each other.
Ming mang (
Tibetan: མིག་མངས,
Wylie: mig mangs) is a two-player
abstract strategyboard game from
Tibet.
Ming mang is also a general term for the word "boardgame" in Tibet. The correct name and spelling of the game may actually be Mig mang(s) (or Mig-Mang(s)),[8][9] but pronounced Ming mang or Mi Mang.[9] The term mig mang is also applied to Tibetan go[8] with both games using exactly the same board which is a 17 x 17 square board, and black and white pieces.[9][10] Mig is in reference to the chart (the pattern of horizontal and vertical lines) of the board, and Mangs refers to the notion that the more charts are used on the board, the more pieces are needed to play the game,[11] but some state that it means "many eyes".[8][9] The game may also be known as Gundru (or Gun-dru).[12] The game was popular among some Tibetan monks before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the uprising in 1959,[13] and among aristocratic families.[9]
Polo is a
ball game that is played on
horseback, a traditional
field sport and one of the world's oldest known
team sports.[14] It originated in ancient
Persia (modern-day
Iran) and It dates back over 2,000 years and was initially played by Persian nobility as a training exercise for cavalry units. Polo eventually spread to other parts of the world, the game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of
scoring using a long-handled wooden
mallet to hit a small hard
ball through the opposing team's
goal. Each team has four mounted riders, and the game usually lasts one to two hours, divided into periods called chukkas or chukkers.
Polo has been played in Tibet since at least the early eight century.[1]
^
abMurakami, Daisuke (April 2014). "Aspects of the Traditional Gambling Game known as Sho in Modern Lhasa — religious and gendered worldviews infusing the Tibetan dice game —". Revue d'Études Tibétaines (29): 245–270.
S2CID54691303.
Tibet has many traditional games with origins dating up to 5,000 years ago.[1][2][3]
Traditional games
Rock carrying
There are various rock-lifting competitions in Tibet which center around participants who carry and maneuver rocks that are 150 kilograms (330 lb) or more.[4][3]
Board games
Gyiren
Gyiren is a popular Tibetan variation of
snooker which originated in India.[5][6]
Sho ( Tibetan : ཤོ ) is a traditional
race game in
Tibet, still common today.[7]
Its name is simply the Tibetan word for "
dice".[7] It is traditionally played for money and by men, with two to four players - three being the most common. With four players, the usual variant is to play as two teams of two, with the partners sitting opposite each other.
Ming mang (
Tibetan: མིག་མངས,
Wylie: mig mangs) is a two-player
abstract strategyboard game from
Tibet.
Ming mang is also a general term for the word "boardgame" in Tibet. The correct name and spelling of the game may actually be Mig mang(s) (or Mig-Mang(s)),[8][9] but pronounced Ming mang or Mi Mang.[9] The term mig mang is also applied to Tibetan go[8] with both games using exactly the same board which is a 17 x 17 square board, and black and white pieces.[9][10] Mig is in reference to the chart (the pattern of horizontal and vertical lines) of the board, and Mangs refers to the notion that the more charts are used on the board, the more pieces are needed to play the game,[11] but some state that it means "many eyes".[8][9] The game may also be known as Gundru (or Gun-dru).[12] The game was popular among some Tibetan monks before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the uprising in 1959,[13] and among aristocratic families.[9]
Polo is a
ball game that is played on
horseback, a traditional
field sport and one of the world's oldest known
team sports.[14] It originated in ancient
Persia (modern-day
Iran) and It dates back over 2,000 years and was initially played by Persian nobility as a training exercise for cavalry units. Polo eventually spread to other parts of the world, the game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of
scoring using a long-handled wooden
mallet to hit a small hard
ball through the opposing team's
goal. Each team has four mounted riders, and the game usually lasts one to two hours, divided into periods called chukkas or chukkers.
Polo has been played in Tibet since at least the early eight century.[1]
^
abMurakami, Daisuke (April 2014). "Aspects of the Traditional Gambling Game known as Sho in Modern Lhasa — religious and gendered worldviews infusing the Tibetan dice game —". Revue d'Études Tibétaines (29): 245–270.
S2CID54691303.