The Stakes were high in those days!

From Murray's "A History of Chess," ( page number 37 ), where he quotes the Arabic historian al-Mas'udi writing about 950 AD. :

"But by far the most frequent use of
ivory is for the manufacture of men for
chess and nard.  Several of the chessmen
are figures of men or animals, a span high
and big, or even more. During the game a
man stands by, specially to carry the men
from one square to the other. When the
Indians play at chess or nard they wager
stuffs or precious stones. But it sometimes
bappens that a player after losing all his
possessions, will wager one of his limbs.
For this they set beside the players a small
copper vessel over a wood fire, in which
is boiled a reddish ointment peculiar to
the country, which has the property of
healing wounds and stanching the flow of
blood. If the man who wagered one of his
fingers loses, he cuts off the finger with a
dagger, and then plunges his hand in the
ointment and cauterizes the wound. Then
he returns to the game. If the luck is
against him he sacrifices another finger,
his hand, his fore-arm, his elbow, and
other parts of his body. After each
amputation he cauterizes the wound with
the ointment, which is a curious mixture
of ingredients and drugs peculiar to India,
of extraordinary effectiveness. The custom
of which I have spoken is a notorious
fact."

wow very high. they should have just played for rating points..

I suppose they could have divided the fingers into three at the joints!