Lathi khela
traditional Bangladeshi martial art
Lathi khela (Bengali: লাঠি খেলা) is a traditional Bengali martial art – a kind of stick fighting practiced in India and Bangladesh. A practitioner is known as a lathial. Lathi khela originated from the Bengal region in the Indian subcontinent.
Etymology
The word lathi is the Bengali word meaning stick, while khela means a sport or game. Therefore, lathi khela translates as a game of sticks.
Instruments
The lathi is normally made of the male bamboo and sometimes bound at short intervals with iron rings. A typical lathi measures 6 to 8 feet (2 to 2.4 m). Some, called bari, are shorter and may be wielded like a baton or bludgeon. In the past, sticks could be paired with shields, as can still be seen in nori bari (mock stick-fight) demonstrations.
History
Rich farmers and other eminent people hired lathial for security and as a symbol of their power.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lathi khela” as traditional Bangladeshi martial art. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as traditional Bangladeshi martial art. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16185706. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Lathi khela”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Lathi khela primary sources, Lathi khela archive and Lathi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lathi khela”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Lathi khela” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.