The 72 planes of existence: a map of the Leela board

At first glance the Leela board looks like a grid of 72 squares with some snakes and arrows drawn over it. Look longer and it turns into something closer to a map: a picture of the places a mind can be, arranged from the heaviest at the bottom to the lightest at the top. The version we play follows the board described by Harish Johari in his 1975 book on the game, and every cell on it has a name, usually in Sanskrit, and a meaning.

This is a walking tour. You do not need to memorise it. But knowing the shape of the board changes how a game feels: a snake stops being bad luck and becomes a sentence about how one state leads to another.

The shape: eight rows of nine

The board has eight rows of nine cells. You enter it by rolling a six, which places your token on cell 6, Moha, Delusion. From there you climb, row by row, and the game ends when you reach cell 68, Cosmic Consciousness. If a move carries you past 72, the count continues from the start of the board and the journey goes round again.

The first six rows are tied to the first six chakras, the energy centres of yogic tradition, one row each. The seventh holds the subtlest obstacles. The eighth lies above all the chakras. Read the rows as floors of a house, and each floor has its own weather.

Row by row

Row one (cells 1 to 9): the ground. This is the level of muladhara, the root chakra: the body, survival, support. Here you find Genesis, Illusion, Anger, Greed, the Physical Plane, Delusion, Conceit, Avarice and the Sensual Plane. It sounds like a list of sins. It is really a list of basics. The Physical Plane, cell 5, is described as a foundation, not a ceiling, and cell 9 treats desire as the force that sets life moving.

1 · Genesis

5 · Physical Plane

9 · Sensual Plane

Row two (10 to 18): desire and feeling. Svadhisthana, the chakra of desire. Purification opens the row with an arrow; Envy and Jealousy sit here too, each with a snake. So does Mercy, cell 17, where desire turns away from the self toward another, and where the longest arrow on the board begins. The row closes on the Plane of Joy: joy as a state, not a reward.

Row three (19 to 27): action. Manipura, the chakra of will and fire. Karma-loka, the Plane of Action, opens it: you are what you do. The row is busy. Charity and the Plane of Dharma send arrows up; Bad Company sends a snake down; Selfless Service closes the row with an arrow of its own. Actions lead in different directions, and the board draws them that way.

Row four (28 to 36): the heart. Anahata, the heart chakra. Apt Religion, Irreligiosity, Good Tendencies, the Plane of Balance, and the subtle senses of Fragrance and Taste. Purgatory, cell 35, is not punishment here but the place where consequences become visible. Clarity of Consciousness closes the row.

Row five (37 to 45): knowing. Vishuddha, the chakra of space and speech. True Awareness opens it, the kind of knowing that changes the knower. The breaths of the body appear as planes: Life Energy, Elimination, Circulation. Then the Human Plane, the Plane of Fire, the Birth of Man, and a sharp contrast between Ignorance (a snake) and Right Knowledge (an arrow).

Row six (46 to 54): clear seeing. Ajna, the chakra between the brows. Conscience, Neutrality, the Solar and Lunar Planes, Austerity, Earth, Violence, the Liquid Plane, and finally Spiritual Devotion, whose arrow goes straight to the goal.

Row seven (55 to 63): the last obstacles. Egotism, Primal Vibrations, the Gaseous Plane, the Plane of Radiation, the Plane of Reality, Positive Intellect, Negative Intellect, Happiness, Darkness. This row is unsettling in a good way. It is very high on the board, and it still has three snakes: Egotism, Negative Intellect and Darkness. Nobody is too advanced to fall.

Row eight (64 to 72): beyond. The Phenomenal Plane, the Plane of Inner Space, Bliss, Cosmic Good, Cosmic Consciousness at 68, then the Absolute Plane, and the three qualities of nature: True Nature (sattva), Activity (rajas) and Inertia (tamas). The last cell, 72, holds a snake back down to Earth.

The goal is not the top

Here is the detail that most people miss. The goal is cell 68, not cell 72. The board continues past its own finish line. Cell 69, the Absolute Plane, is described as very high, yet not home. And cell 72 is Inertia, whose snake drops you to 51, Earth.

The design says something plain and quite modern: overshooting is a thing. You can pass the moment of clarity and keep going out of habit, into activity, then heaviness. To reach 68 from 67 the die has to show exactly one. Everything else walks past it.

Snakes and arrows, briefly

There are ten arrows and ten snakes on this board. The arrows start from qualities such as Purification, Mercy, Charity, Dharma, Selfless Service, Apt Religion, True Awareness, Right Knowledge, Conscience and Spiritual Devotion. The snakes start from states such as Envy, Jealousy, Bad Company, Irreligiosity, Ignorance, Violence, Egotism, Negative Intellect, Darkness and Inertia.

Notice where they land. Envy drops you to Avarice. Egotism drops you to Anger. Darkness drops you all the way to Illusion, cell 2. Mercy lifts you to the Absolute Plane. Each line is a small, testable claim about the mind. You can check it against your own week.

How to read the map

You do not have to believe in chakras to find the board useful. Treat it as an old diagram drawn by people who watched their own minds closely and wrote down what led to what. Ask where you have been standing lately. Ask which snakes you know by heart and which arrows you keep walking past.

And when you play, try to notice the row, not only the cell. The same die roll means something different on the floor of action than on the floor of clear seeing, and the game is at its best when you feel that difference for yourself.