Where polo began.

A game older than its records

The sources agree on the broad picture and very little of the detail. Columbia University's archaeology department says polo was invented in Central Asia more than 2,000 years ago, and gives chogān as its Persian name. Historic UK suggests it was probably first played by nomadic warriors over two thousand years ago. The Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA), in the history chapter of its 2024 year book, says the game is believed to have begun in Persia in the first millennium BC or earlier.

Wikipedia names the Persian game chovgan as polo's ancestor, played in Persia and Central Asia from about the 6th century BCE to the 1st century CE, and says the modern form of the game developed in India. It also records, citing a scholarly source, that China, Iran, Manipur, Mongolia, Pakistan and Tibet each claim to be the birthplace of polo. There is no agreed answer, and these pages do not pick one.

Some popular histories go further. Historic UK, for example, repeats a claim that the first recorded tournament was played in 600 BC between Turkomans and Persians. It gives no primary source, and we have not found one, so treat it as a story rather than a record.

The English word itself came late. According to Wikipedia, "polo" comes from the Balti word for "ball", which is related to the Standard Tibetan word pulu.

Persia: chogān

In 2017 UNESCO added chogān, described as a horse-riding game accompanied by music and storytelling, to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, on Iran's nomination. The UNESCO file describes two mounted teams trying to drive a ball through the opposing goal with wooden sticks, and treats the game, its music and its storytelling as one tradition carried by players, musicians and storytellers together. It says chogān has more than 2,000 years of history in Iran, was played mostly in royal courts and urban fields, and has been passed on mainly within families and workshops, with chogān associations running training courses in recent decades.

Wikipedia, a secondary source, says Parthian kings and nobles sponsored the game, that it was a court pastime and part of royal education under the Sasanians (224 to 651 CE), and that the Mongol rulers of Persia and later the Safavid dynasty supported it. It also says Abbasid Baghdad had a large polo ground outside its walls, that Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers including Saladin and Baybars played, and that the polo-stick suit of Mamluk playing cards became the clubs suit of Latin-suited decks.

Persian literature carries the game too. The Shahnama, the Book of Kings, includes an episode in which the hero Siyavush plays polo before Afrasiyab, who proposes the match and is impressed by his skill. A 16th-century illustration of the scene, from the Shah Tahmasp Shahnama, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The square at Isfahan

Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, now called Meidan Emam, was built under Shah Abbas I, according to Columbia, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Columbia describes its stone goalposts as among the oldest surviving in the world and says chogān is still played there at special events. The sources do not agree on when it was built:

• Columbia says the early 1600s.
• Lonely Planet gives 1602.
• The Iran Safar travel site gives 1598.
• Historic UK says the pitch in front of the Ali Qapu Palace was built in the 1500s and has not changed size, and that it is now a public park.

Azerbaijan: chovqan

In 2013, at its session in Baku, UNESCO's committee inscribed chovqan, a traditional Karabakh horse-riding game, on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. The decision describes two teams of five riders on Karabakh horses hitting a ball with wooden mallets on a grass field, accompanied by a folk music called janghi. It lists the threats to the tradition: falling interest among young people, urbanisation and migration, a shortage of Karabakh horses and the loss of pasture.

Byzantium: tzykanion

According to Wikipedia, a secondary source, the Byzantine Empire took the game from Sasanian Persia and called it tzykanion. It says the 12th-century historian John Kinnamos described players driving a leather ball with long sticks that ended in a kind of net, and that the Emperor Theodosius II (reigned 408 to 450) built a polo ground, a tzykanisterion, in the Great Palace of Constantinople. A later emperor, Basil I, demolished it to make way for the Nea Ekklesia church and built a larger one in its place.

Tang China

Polo is well attested in Tang China (618 to 907). Wikipedia says the game reached China along the Silk Road and that Tang tomb figures of women players survive. The best-known image is a mural from the tomb of Li Yong, Prince Siguo (687 to 727), in Fuping county, now in the Shaanxi Archaeology Museum. China Daily calls it the most vivid Tang polo scene to survive and says it records a match the prince himself played.

The Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals

In South Asia the game was called chaugan. A listing from the National Museum, New Delhi describes chaugan bazi as an outdoor game of royal families until the 18th century, played by two teams of five with sticks angled at the end. The same listing says Qutb-ud-din Aibak died in 1210 after falling from his horse during a game. The museum also holds an 18th-century miniature in the Golconda style, "Chand Bibi playing Polo", showing five princesses at play.

The fullest early description comes from Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari, dated to around 1580, which describes the polo of the emperor Akbar. In the excerpt published by Lapham's Quarterly, Abul Fazl says Akbar valued polo as a test of character and quick judgement. Players were paired by a throw of dice, no more than ten were allowed on the ground at once, and substitutes came on after 24 minutes. Akbar also played on dark nights, using balls of slow-burning palas wood that had been set alight.

Sources differ on where that night-polo account appears. Some blog writers attribute it to the Ain-i-Akbari, while the Akbarnama, also by Abul Fazl, describes the burning ball. Both may be right; we have not been able to settle it.

The HPA's history says the Mughals were largely responsible for carrying the game east from Persia and that it was established in India by the 16th century. From there, the next chapter belongs to Manipur and the British.