Wrestling is one of the oldest games and forms of physical culture on the Indian subcontinent and has a long and steady history. While its historicity is well documented, we know little about how the tradition of wrestling was passed on textually from one generation to another, what wrestling practices were lost between eras and what modifications in Indian wrestling texts took place under colonialism. This article compares two Indian wrestling manuals. It focuses on the Mallapurāṇa, written in the early modern period, and The Science of Wrestling: Volume I, written in the early twentieth century. It is an attempt to understand the histories and contexts behind such manuals and the changes in the medium and message in them over time. Using wrestling manuals as texts for historical analysis reveals how they became grounds on which identities and spaces were contested, negotiated and redefined.
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