I have just received a copy of Sedentary Games of India, edited by Nirbed Ray and Amitabha Ghosh (The Asiatic Society, Calcutta, 1999). This is a book that I had despaired of ever reading – I had searched in all of the sources available to me, but had always been disappointed.

The book contains 28 chapters, each previously published in hard-to-find Journals, and many cited by Murray in his History of Board Games other than Chess. There are, for example, 8 articles by Professor Hem Chandra Das Gupta, and 8 by Jatindra Mohan Datta.

I look forward to reading the book attentively, and posting my thoughts here.

I should mention that my finding of this book owes nothing whatsoever to Amazon.com, who report that the book is ‘Currently unavailable’. They are wrong – it is available. My thanks to Abebooks, who listed the book, and to Manohar Book Service who were the actual sellers, and who got the book to Belgium from New Dehli in only 8 days from the date of ordering.