Leela Source · School of the game

Seventy-two squares, one die, and the question you actually came with

Not a fortune and not a personality test: an Indian board that hands you a position you did not choose, and a school that teaches you to read it — square by square, from the sources, and then to hold a game for someone else.

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7years leading Leela

10,000+people played through the game

1,000facilitators trained worldwide

What is Leela

The board has no opinion about your future

Leela does not tell you what will happen. It has no opinion about your future. What it has is a structure that does not move — seventy-two positions, the same seventy-two for everyone who has ever played — and against that structure your own situation becomes legible. The die decides where you land. The work is entirely in the reading.

Every other instrument of self-knowledge lets you choose where to look. Leela does not: a die does. That is not a flaw in the design, it is the design. You did not choose the century, the family or the body you woke up in, and the game refuses to pretend otherwise. What you choose is what you make of the square you are given.

So you sit at the edge of the board with a question you actually carry — about work, money, a person, a decision you keep postponing. You roll until a six lets you in. From then on the die moves you, and every square you land on is read back against the question you brought.

A group session of Leela: the teacher crouched over a full-size floor board, students seated around it — A group session on a full-size board.

You bring the question

The session starts from something you genuinely want to understand, and stays with it to the end. No question, no game.

Played alone or in a circle

One-to-one with a facilitator, or in a small group where every square is read aloud. Learning to lead it is the other way round — that you walk alone, at your own pace.

The falls are part of it

Nine of the nineteen transitions send a player downward, and the longest begins one square past the goal. A snake is not a punishment for playing badly.

About Leela Source

A school for the people who lead the game

Leela Source exists to teach the game accurately and to train facilitators who can hold a session without improvising the tradition.

The game as it is taught, not as it is retold

Every square, arrow and snake is taught from the source the school works with, and the source is named. Where editions disagree, the disagreement is taught too.

The whole board, not a summary of it

Every one of the seventy-two squares has its own lesson, and several have a second. Nothing is compressed into an overview because it was inconvenient to teach.

No cohorts, no start dates

You begin when you begin. One lesson stands open at a time and the next opens when you finish it, so there is no group to keep up with and none to fall behind.

For yourself, and then for someone else

The courses teach both: how to play your own game, and how to lead one for another person — from the question at the start to the reading at the end.

The board

Seventy-two squares, ten arrows, nine snakes, one die

The whole structure of the game, and the reason a session can go somewhere you did not plan.

Gold rises, green falls. Square 68 is the goal, and it can only be entered on an exact count.

The field

Nine squares across and eight up, numbered from the lower left and reversing on every row. A player enters at the first square and is trying to reach sixty-eight — the goal — on an exact count.

The arrows

Ten ascents. An arrow carries a player further than any roll could, from a square that names something they have understood to one far above it.

The snakes

Nine descents, and the reason the board is not sentimental. A snake returns a player to a square they thought they had finished with — the longest of them starts one square past the goal.

The die

One die, and a rule that stops people entering casually: the game does not begin until it shows a six.

two courses

From your first game to a practice of your own

Two courses, taught in order or entered where you already are. Each one ends with something you can do, not something you have watched.

The first course

The Source

The seventy-two squares of the board in order, and after every nine of them a video that reads the whole row.

Level: No experience needed
Format: Self-paced video lessons; the next opens when you finish the last
Length: 88 days suggested
Price: AED 999

Programme

Introduction — the approach, and how to work with the programme
Getting to know the game — what Leela is, and how the board is built
The history of Leela — where it comes from, and how it was passed on
The seventy-two squares — each one read in full, one at a time
The eight rows — every ninth lesson reads the whole plane
Additional lessons — the gunas, cause and consequence
Completion — the closing practice, and your own first game
Additional materials — the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Darshanas, and where the game comes from

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The second course

Jaina

The advanced continuation of The Source: fourteen lessons in order, seven topic videos beside them, and the board itself — playable online, and ready to print.

Level: After The Source
Format: Self-paced video lessons, and the online board
Length: Self-paced
Price: AED 555

Programme

Fourteen lessons, taken in order
Seven topic videos, open from the start and in any order
The online Leela board — roll, move, and follow the transitions
Print-ready files, to have a board made near you

See the course

Featured: The Source — 88 days suggested, 101 lessons.

Who teaches

Evgeny Nemolyaev

Researcher and facilitator of Leela

Evgeny Nemolyaev teaches Leela the way a scholar reads a manuscript: from the source, and with the disagreements left in.

Accredited through all three levels of the OMKARA International School of Leela Game Facilitators, he researches the Nagas — the serpent beings whose descent the board itself draws. He collects historical Leela boards and traces how their squares changed from one century and one country to the next. He leads expeditions through Assam and Nagaland, where that lineage is not a subject but a living culture.

He received initiation, and the name Kartikeya, at the Shiva temple Nilkantha Mahadev in Chittorgarh. His books on the game and on serpent wisdom are published in English; the first is sold in hardback at Watkins in London.

The Source is his own course, taught as it has been handed down rather than as it is usually retold.

The books

Two books to keep beside the board

Both are PDF editions, delivered as a download after purchase.

The Mystery of Snakes and Ladders

What if your life is a game whose rules you don't fully understand yet?

A book about the ancient game of self-discovery, where every square has a meaning, and the snakes and arrows reveal unexpected connections between causes and consequences.

Here Leela unfolds on several levels — as a game, a psychological tool, a philosophical enquiry, and a journey further into yourself. The seventy-two squares become a map through which you can explore your states, choices, desires, fears, illusions and recurring patterns.

It is for people who want to go beyond rolling the die, and start asking what is really happening behind the game.

Start with the first square, and see where your game leads you.

Pages: 491
Formats: PDF
Language: English
Price: AED 30

Buy this book

Pre-eternals: The World of Nagas

Who are the Nagas — mythical beings, symbols of ancient wisdom, or something more?

For thousands of years their image has appeared in sacred texts, in art, and in the cultures of India, Tibet and Southeast Asia.

Evgeny Nemolyaev explores the phenomenon through ancient texts, philosophy, culture, art, and his own travels across Asia.

The World of Nagas is a book about serpents that may turn out to be about something far more profound. About knowledge. Energy. Karma. Transformation. And about why an ancient myth can sometimes reflect the human experience with astonishing accuracy.

Pages: 428
Formats: PDF
Language: English
Price: AED 30

Buy this book

FAQ

Questions people ask before enrolling

Do I need to have played Leela before?

No. The Source starts from the beginning — what the game is, how the board is built, and then every square in order. Jaina is the one that assumes you have already walked it.

How is the course delivered?

Recorded video lessons, watched in your own time and in any time zone. One lesson stands open at a time: finishing it opens the next. Everything you have finished stays open for good.

How long does it take, realistically?

As long as you take. Eighty-eight days is the pace the school suggests for The Source, but nothing expires and nothing runs ahead of you — several lessons in one evening is as valid as one square a week.

Is there a certificate, and does it mean anything?

You finish with a certificate of completion — a record from this school that you walked the whole board, not an accreditation from a governing body. What the courses give you is not the paper: they teach you to hold a game, first for yourself and then for someone else.

Can I pay in instalments?

[PAYMENT TERMS — instalment options and providers go here.]

What if I want to try the game first?

Play an individual session before deciding. [STATE WHETHER THE FEE IS CREDITED TOWARDS THE COURSE.]

Begin

The game does not start until the die shows a six

Neither does the work. Take the first course and walk the board square by square, at whatever pace it asks of you.

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