Gambler's Lament

The Gambler's lament (or "Gamester's lament") is one of the hymns of the Rigveda which do not have any direct cultic or religious context. It is found in the late Tenth Book (RV 10.34), where most of such hymns on "miscellaneous" topics are found, suggesting a date of compilation corresponding to the early Indian Iron Age.

Moriz Winternitz considered the poem to be the "most beautiful among the non–religious poems of the Rig Veda."Arthur Anthony Macdonell writes the following about the poem: "Considering that it is the oldest composition of the kind in existence, we cannot but regard this poem as the most remarkable literary product."

The poem comprises a monologue of a repentant gambler who laments the ruin brought on him because of addiction to the dice. The poem is didactic in nature and shows early indications of the proverbial and sententious poetry in later Hindu texts.Arthur Llewellyn Basham believed that Gambler's Lament was originally constructed as a spell to ensure victory in a game of dice, which was later converted into a cautionary poem by an anonymous poet.

The poem testifies to the popularity of gambling among all classes of Vedic people. The gambling dice (akșa) were made from nuts of Terminalia bellirica (Vibhīdaka), into an oblong shape with four scoring sides— kŗta (four), tretā (trey), dvāpar (duce), kali (ace). The gambler who drew a multiple of four won the game.

The hymn consists of 14 verses in the tristubh meter. In verses 2-3, the narrator describes how the dice have ruined his domestic life (trans. Ralph T. H. Griffith 1889):

For the die's sake, whose single point is final, mine own devoted wife I alienated.

akṣasyāhamekaparasya hetoranuvratāmapa jāyāmarodham

As of a costly horse grown old and feeble, I find not any profit of the gamester.

aśvasyeva jarato vasnyasya nāhaṃ vindāmikitavasya bhogham

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