Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik

Sport, as we know it today, comes from ancient Greece where games were part of the funeral rituals to honour dead heroes and leaders. India also has a long history of sport. In Harappa, one finds seals that suggest that the people of Harappa were familiar with bull fighting or bull leaping, a common agricultural sport, similar to Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. Amongst Harappan toys, we find dice. In the Vedas, we find reference to chariot racing and gambling with dice, popular outdoor and indoor sports respectively. In Ramayana and Mahabharata, the warrior princes are shown as being proficient in archery, mace-warfare, fencing, wrestling, and similar military sports. Thus, we can safely say that sport in India began in both agricultural communities as well as martial communities.