Men playing the ancient Indian board game of 'Chauper' or 'Chauser' or 'Pachisi' outside a temple complex in the holy town of Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

Chaupar is a cross and circle board game very similar to pachisi, the board is made of wool or cloth, with wooden pawns and six cowry shells to be used to determine each player's move, Although others distinguish chaupur from pachisi by the use of 3 tetrahedral (four sided) dice. The game is usually played on a table or the floor. Cross and circle board game played like a symmetrical cross and pieces move around based upon a throw of 6/7 cowrie shells, with the number of shells resting with aperture upwards indicating the number of spaces to move. The name of the game derives from the Hindi word pachis, meaning twenty-five, the largest score that can be thrown with the cowrie shells. Thus the game is also known by the name Twenty-Five. There are other versions of this game where the largest score that can be thrown is thirty. There are other well known versions of the game, chausar, chaupar, chaupur or caupur. The word caupur derives from the Sanskrit catus pada meaning he who has four legs. Parcheesi, Sorry! and Ludo are among the many Westernized commercial versions of the game. A similar game called Parchís is popular in Spain and northern Morocco. Parqués is its Colombian variant. The Jeu des petits chevaux (Game of Little Horses) is played in France, and Mensch ärgere Dich nicht is a popular German variant. It is also possible that this game led to the development of the Korean board game Yunnori, through the ancient kingdom Baekje.