Chupu jinglüe 樗蒲經略

Chupu jinglüe 樗蒲經略 is a book on a kind of board game with pieces of round, oblong shapes called chupu 樗蒲. Authorship is attributed to Cheng Dachang 程大昌 (1123-1195), who is better known for his books Kaogubian 考古編, Yanfanlu 演繁錄 and Yonglu 雍錄.

The use of chupu pieces (also written 摴蒱 or 摴蒲) was known from the Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) to the Tang period 唐 (618-907), and is attested in literary form in stories of the collection Shishuo xinyu. The pieces had several ranks, namely zi 子 "man", ma 馬 "horse", and wumu 五木 "five wooden pieces". Each gamer was handed out six horse pieces and used to throw "five-wood" pieces like dice. There were ten different combinations of a toss, the most valuable of which (gui cai 貴采) were called lu 盧 "black", zhi 雉 "pheasant", du 犢 "calf", and bai 白 "white". Other results were called zacai 雜采. Gamers with a valuable toss were allowed to toss once more (lianzhi 連擲) redraw on the board (dama 打馬 "whip the horse") or to advance to marked points (guoguan 過關 "go through the pass"). From the Song period 宋 (960-1279) on, this type of game was known as wumu 五木 (see Wumujing 五木經). The five pieces also served as tokens for gambling.

The Han-period writer Ma Rong 馬融 (79-166 CE) wrote a rhapsody called Chupu fu 樗蒲賦. It is quoted in the encyclopaedia Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 from the Tang period.

Figure 1. Image of constellations of chupu pieces

The word chupu is also used for wooden pieces thrown to predict the future. This kind of prognostication was invented by the Daoist master Laozi 老子, at least according to a statement in the Bowuzhi 博物志 that is quoted in the dictionary Yiqiejing yinyji 一切經音義. The encyclopaedia Taiping yulan 太平御覽 quotes from a text saying that Laozi invented the game when he left China and entered the barbarian countries of the west. This story might be a hint that the chupu game was brought to China from Central Asia.

The Chupu jinglüe is found in the series Shuofu 說郛.