Case: 021Mughal conquerors brought these cards to India in the early 16th century where they are called Ganjifa. Rolf Zimmermann suggests that 'Ganjifa' would mean gan-ji-pa, a mispelled form of han-chi-pai or Chinese playing cards. In India, current packs used for play have eight, ten, or twelve suits though as many as 32 suits once existed. The Indians also converted the original rectangular cards to circular ones. Every suit contains twelve cards with the top two usually being the court cards of king and vizier and the bottom ten being pip cards. Half the suits use reverse ranking for their pip cards. There are many motifs for the suit pips but some include coins, clubs, jugs, and swords which resemble later Mamluk and Latin suits. M.Dummett speculated that Ganjifa and Mamluk cards may have descended from an earlier deck which consisted of 48 cards divided into four suits each with ten pip cards and two court cards.
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