Enlarged Picture

< SEE PREVIOUS PICTURE  •  BACK TO LEGEND  •  SEE NEXT PICTURE >

The “Dashabooja Sootra,” a Sanskrit manuscript on banana-leaf papyrus believed to date from c. 1430 A.D. It recounts a philosophical discourse between a guru named Kavi (representing the spirit) and an unnamed narrator (representing the senses). The two locutors discuss Dashabooja and the nature of luck. Poker is said to be a metaphor for life.

Translated into English, the discourse was published as The Sapience of Dashabooja. An excerpt:

Kavi said: Do you not see, that indeed every man is the ten of hearts, for does not every man have ten hearts?
I said: This is verily news to me. For every man I have met has only one heart apiece.
Kavi said: Only one heart in the physical world. But a man also has a heart in each of the nine spiritual planes.
I said: Oh. Yesterday, you said every man was the three of clubs. Is that still truth?
Kavi said: Truth cannot be changed or denied; yet truth is re-ordered with every shuffle.

< SEE PREVIOUS PICTURE  •  BACK TO LEGEND  •  SEE NEXT PICTURE >