Chapter II -Nerenchi Keliya
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Nerenchi has long been played across Sri Lanka wherever people gathered, scratched into garden soil with sticks, played with stones, seeds, or whatever discs were on hand, far beyond the paddy fields alone. Its history runs deeper still. In Ancient Ceylon, archaeologist Henry Parker describes two Nerenchi-peta diagrams cut into the great flight of steps at Mihintale by the masons who laid them, steps local monastic tradition attributed to the reign of Mahadathika Maha-Naga, though Parker himself places their likely construction in the 1st or 2nd century AD based on a nearby inscription. Similar boards survive carved in stone at Lankaramaya, Abhayagiriya, Ranmasu Uyana. added by different rulers in different eras, linking the game to roughly two thousand years of continuous Sri Lankan history.
2 players, 13 discs each (26 total). Muththadiya (Black) places first. 24 board positions across three concentric squares (outer 1-8, inner 9-16, centre 17-24).
The four inner-square midpoints (10, 12, 14, 16) may jump across the inner square to the opposite midpoint (10↔14, 12↔16) if it is empty. The only long-range move; Stage 2 only.
Opponent reduced to 2 discs.