Nabagunjara Ganjifa

Above: Odisha, in eastern India.

Nabagunjara Ganjifa is one of the many versions of ganjifa, the Indian game with round, hand-painted cards. There are eight suits, each one containing ten pip cards and two court cards, traditionally known as the pradhan (minister) and the raja (king). In this particular deck, the pradhan’s role is filled by the prince Arjuna and the raja’s by Krishna (one of the avatars of the god Vishnu) in his form as Nabagunjara, a fantastical creature composed of the parts of nine different animals.

According to one version of the great Hindu epic The Mahabharata, Arjuna was meditating when Krishna appeared as Nabagunjara, made up of: the head of a rooster; the neck of a peacock; the back of a bull; the waist of a lion; the trunk of an elephant; the tail of a serpent; and the legs of an elephant, a tiger, and a deer. The final limb was a human arm holding a lotus. Arjuna, a renowned archer, was about to shoot the beast when he realized it was Krishna. Arjuna then bowed in awe before the god. That’s the pose in which he’s portrayed on these extraordinary cards.