I found some interesting articles on origin of chess.Please take a look.
Originally posted by CHESS
The Origin of Chess
By Sam SloanCopyright December 14, 1985 by Sam Sloan
Sloan Publishers
ISBN 0-9609190-1-5
In the mid-1950's, the most popular television program for a time was called the "$64,000 Question". Contestants, who were said to be carefully screened in advance and were experts, but not professionals, in their chosen fields, were asked questions of increasing difficulty. This was the first of the great popular TV game shows. First, there was the $64 question. If that was answered correctly, the contestant could quit and take his money, or go for double. The bets went from $64 to $128, $256, $512, $1000, $2,000, $4,000, $8,000, $16,000, $32,000 and $64,000.
Most contestants went high on the scale, and the tension and excitement increased from week to week as they moved towards their goals. I only saw it happen once that a contestant actually missed the first $64 question.
On that occasion, a boy of around twelve years old was brought out. His subject was chess. He was, of course, billed as a prodigy of the game. As usual, the moderator started with a relatively easy $64 question. "Where was chess invented?", the moderator asked.
"In China," the boy replied.
"Wrong!", said the moderator. "The correct answer is India."
With that, the boy was quickly hustled off the stage. This supposed child prodigy was never seen or heard from in the world of chess again.
Starting this study the author proceeded from the following thesis:
The history of chess cannot be studied without a proper knowledge of the history of other board games. First it it necessary to observe the games which had come into existence before chess appeared. Only after that we are able to understand the sources and reasons which guided to the origin of chess.
The history of games in Old India shows that much simpler games were in existence before a complicated war game came into being. In particular, the direct predecessor was asthapada - a fourhanded race game on an 8x8 board where the movement of the game pieces was determined by the throw of dice.
H.J.R. Murray (1913) asserted flatly the following:
"The theory that chess is a development of an earlier race game involves the hypothesis that some reformer changed the whole nomenclature in order to make it self-assistent as a war game and secured the agreement of all his contemporaries. I find this hypothesis incredible".
Nevertheless, it is not too hard to prove the possibility of such a transition though it should have taken rather a long time and consisted of several intermediate stages.
A very important fact helped this transition. For one of the highest castes of the Indian society the representatives of the military aristocracy - Ksatriyas - the challenge to a gambling match was equal to the challenge to a duel. This testifies to the fact that a game of dice was put on the same footing as a battle. The Ksatriyan used to have battles on chariot races were their favourite pastime (side by side with gambling) in time of peace.
My hypothesis is that the new race game was built up on the races of chariots.
In the course of the game two chariots could be placed on the same square. This then led to a conflict. In the race game this problem was solved easily. The first chariot was taken off the board and it had to start the race from the very beginning. From here, there is only one step to another idea - the chariots start fighting one another. The first chariot perishes and it is removed from the board and cannot return. In this way the Ksatriya`s war game could appear as the battle of chariots.
The reform considered above could take place on the same board and it may be quite possible that the name of the game did not change. It preserved the same name ashtapada. This explains the silence of the literary sources.
Another natural step was the appearance of all types of the Indian military forces on the board - chariots, elephants, cavalry and infantry. Chaturanga completely was built up on ashtapada. This war game was (like ashtapada) a fourhanded game.
We also have to take the political situation into consideration. The fourhanded game, which appeared in the country divided into separate kingdoms could easily become a game for two players in the Empire. In short: there were reasons to turn a fourhanded game into a twohanded and so it happened.
Especially interesting is the question how the concept of checkmate appeared in the war game when the fall of the ruler meant the loss of the game.
Much ink has been wasted on this problem but nobody has yet given a satisfactory explanation. I believe it was hidden in the well-known text of al-Biruni`s India. Speaking about a fourhanded game with dice he saw in lace>Indialace> al-Biruni informs us of the following.
"The pieces have certain values according to which the player gets his share of the stakes; for the pieces are taken and passed into the hands of the player. The value of the King is 5, that of the Elephant 4, of the Horse 3, of the Rook 2, of the Pawn 1. He who takes a King gets 5, for two kings he gets 10, for three kings 15, if the winner is no longer in the possession of his own king. And if he still has his own King and takes all three kings, he gets 54 - number which represents a progression based on the general consent and not on an algebraic principle".
It is not difficult to calculate that 54 is a maximum of the points which a player can take if he is in the possession of all three opponent`s forces including the kings. The algebraic principle here is strictly observed: 5+4+3+2+4=18; 18x3=54. With the general consent a rule was adopted - the capture of the three kings with one`s own king on the board gave a maximum number of points. That meant victory and the end of the game.
1.Etymology. The earliest chess terms appear to be Sanskrit. Murray shows that Pahlavi words in the game are adapted from Sanskrit, and the Arabic in turn from Pahlavi.
2. The Firdausi legend. It describes the arrival of chess from lace>Indialace>, although written long after the events which it claims to depict. That this provenance was not at the time disputed by Persians (or Arabs) convinced Murray that it had a factual basis.
3. Fables. Much of the folk-lore about the birth of chess is from in the sub-continent.
Chess as a game is similar to a biological species or a language in that it can evolve (and obviously, this holds for board games in general). As a result of one or more changes in the rules of play, a particular chess variant can change into another. If such a new chess 'species' improves the play in the eyes of the players, the new variant will replace the old one, which may go extinct.
There is a large body of literature on the origin and evolution of chess and chess-like games; much larger than on all other board games put together. The core questions are where and when chess originated and how it subsequently spread over the world. So far, research has focussed on two sources of information: archaeological finds and literary sources. Because of the similarity of chess variants to biological species, phylogenetic thinking can be applied to them, providing a potential new source of information.
The most hotly debated issue among chess historians is where and when chess originated. The traditional view is that chess originated in India in the late 6th or early 7th century.
In any phylogenetic analysis, the polarity of the characters is a crucial aspect. Shared apomorphies suggest relatedness, shared plesiomorphies do not. This can be used to investigate the question of the origin of chess: using the 'wrong' ancestor (i.e. getting apo- and plesiomorphies the wrong way around) will give rise to a nonsense tree. I did an analysis on 40 different chess variants from around the world, using 109 'morphological' and 'physiological' characters. I forced several hypothetical ancestors (from India and China) upon the analysis and compared the resulting trees with historical evidence. These analyses suggest that it is more likely that chess originated in India than in China.
The tree shown is the one which fits best with historical evidence on the subsequent spread of chess around the world; Chaturanga is an ancient Indian variant, traditionally seen as the ancestor of chess or close to it. The analysis is published in Board Games Studies (2000; 3: 39-50). Full details can be found there; alternatively, e-mail me for a copy of the paper.
The next step, which is in progress at the moment, will be to use more sophisticated phylogenetic analyses and actually try and reconstruct the ancestor of chess. This work is done together with Robert Belshaw, a phylogenetic expert and colleague of mine.
yes, most beleive it's Indian & also I'm looking for Shatrang namak book. It's Sassanid book about methods of play, It would clear the orgin, Indian or Iranian
I've heard before that it was originally a four player game in India and the persians altered it and made the current two player chess game we play today.
It is worth looking at chess as representing war. We will then see that it fits Indian warfare very well. The pawns are the great masses of infantry: slow and ineffective but valuable for their sheer numbers and for support roles. The horse: representing knights- capable of quickly occupying ciritcal spots on the battlefield. The rook, or siege tower: slow to move in the beginning of the battle but valuable if the war drags on. The queen or vizier representing the small but elite professional army or palace guards. And the king: slow but holding the whole army together by his influence. In Indian warfare, if the king was captured, all was lost.
I would think that an Iranian game would have somewhat less emphasis on infantry, elephants and siege towers, and more emphasis on cavalry. I don't find the points in the original article particularly convincing. I would say that chess originated in India and it was taken and perhaps modified by the Iranians.
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Napoleon Bonaparte
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi
Maybe the answer is in that evolution of the game.And chess is one of those games that,wait,chess is the only mind game,unique,a game that by folk legend was a creation of a prisoner serving time in a jail and saving his everyday bread to make the peaces to play with(im sure you all know the story if you know how to play chess).When you realy gett deep into it you could say that it was a creation of a alien nature. tamble();Defenetly it is creation of one inteligent being,if it was a man i beleve that he himself didnt know the full potential of what he/she had created. Artefical inteligense is tested on this game(think about it). I take you are all serious people and i will not take sides.I was tought that it began in a land that had a sah(or shah,i dont know).The concept is that the board is the world-flat plate and that two armies batle one another. ALIENS man ,and all this time i was thinking that they are here to do good but they are trying to devide us,...lol, and i heard that they didnt want chess to have flying peaces (UFO)in the old days.
I've heard before that it was originally a four player game in India and the persians altered it and made the current two player chess game we play today.
It seems you are right Yazzmode.Some information on Chaturanga and Chaturanga rules.
The Sanskrit name Chaturanga means 'quadripartite' (divided into four parts) and was also used to describe the Indian army of Vedic times in which a platoon had four parts: one elephant, one chariot, three soldiers on horseback, and five foot-soldiers. The board was known as the 'ashtapada' (eight-square) and is believed to have been adopted from an older race game related to parcheesi.
The date of the game's origin is uncertain, but documentary evidence exists from c. AD 620 in the form of a Sanskrit document, Vasavadatta from Subhandu which describes what could be chess pieces. Another document, dated from between 750 AD and 850 AD is Chatrang-namak by Pahlavi which describes the arrival of Chatranga to the court of Persia with an Indian embassy. The authenticity of the latter account is doubted by some.
The pieces were raja (king), mantri (counsellor, ancestor of the ferz), gaja (elephant, later called fil), asva (horse), ratha (chariot, later called rook), and pedati (infantry or pawns).
Sources:
The Oxford Companion to Chess (second edition), David Hooper, Kenneth Whyld
The Oxford History of Board Games, David Parlett
The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, D. B. Pritchard
The game is played on a board of eight by eight squares. The squares are not checkered. The game is played by four players, who form two teams of two players. However, rules allow to win individually, and partnerships may be quite loose. The player with the red pieces plays with the player with the yellow pieces, and the player with the green pieces plays with the player with the black pieces.
Opening setup
Players have each one king, one elephant or rook, one knight, one boat, and four pawns. The opening setup is displayed below. Players move clockwise: starting with red, then green, yellow, black, etc.
The king, rook, and knight move as in orthodox chess. Pawns move as in orthodox chess, but have no initial double move, and more complicated promotion rules. Pawns move in the expected direction, i.e., every pawn must move 6 times to get to their final rank. There is no castling.
The boat jumps two squares diagonally. All pieces take as they move, with one addition special case, called the triumph of the boat. When a boat moves to form a square of four boats, then he takes the other three.
Look at the following example.
Boats on d4, d5, e5. A boat on g7 moves to e5.
When the boat on g7 moves to e5, then it takes the other three boats with this move. This special case is unlikely to happen.
Promotion rules
Promotion rules are complicated. The type of piece to which a pawn can promote, when it reaches the last rank, depends on the field where it comes: one looks to which type of piece is on that row/column on the initial position, and that is the type of piece the pawn promotes to (but see also below!) To be precise:
On a1, a8, h1, h8, a pawn promotes to boat.
On a2, a7, b1, b8, g1, g8, h2, h7, a pawn promotes to knight.
On a3, a6, c1, c8, f1, f8, h3, h6, a pawn promotes to rook.
On a4, a5, d1, d8, e1, e8, h4, h5, a pawn promotes to king.
However, when a player owns three or four pawns, a pawn may not promote. Also, when a player has one or two pawns, he may promote to knight and rook. Only when a player owns one pawn and at most one boat, and no other pieces except his king, the pawn may promote to any type of piece (depending on the square, as above.)
In all cases, when a pawn reaches the final rank but may not promote, then the pawn stays as a pawn on the square on the final row. As soon as he may promote, the pawn is changed into the respective piece. In the mean time, the pawn can be taken.
About kings, wins and losses
Kings can be taken as any other type of piece. The player who loses his king may not move. His pieces remain on the board and can be taken. When his partner takes another king, then kings can be exchanged. The players who receive their kings back put these on an empty square of their own choice. A king that is taken for the second time is definitely lost, and cannot be exchanged anymore. The exchange can be demanded by the player who took the second king, but not by any other player.
A player that moves his king to the starting square (called throne) of another player wins a single stake. The game continues then. (One can get only one such stake per opponent.) When a player moves his king to the throne (starting square) of his partners king, then he takes command over the pieces of the partner, (hence he moves twice per round). Who moves his king to the throne of an opponent, and with doing so also takes this king, wins a double stake. (This mainly would happen in the variant with dice.)
When a player has lost all his pieces except his king, the game is a draw. When such a draw happens by moving a piece to an opponents throne, the stake for this moving is still given.
When only one king is left on the board, then this player wins the game (a single stake). When he has taken all other kings with his own king, he wins a double stake. When this has happened on their thrones, he wins a fourfold stake.
Variant with dice
While the game, described above, can well be played without dice, it is assumed that the common form was to play it with dice.
Each turn, a player throws with two (long) dices, that could give as outcome a 2, 3, 4 or 5. When the player throws a 2, he may move with his boat. When a player throws a 3, he may move with his knight. When a player throws a 4, he may move with his rook. When a player throws a 5, he may move with his king or pawn.
A player can make no moves, one move, or two moves in a turn. When his dice are unlucky enough to make moving unable (for instance, when a player throws a double-four on his first move), then he cannot move, and his turn is lost. In other cases, a player could use one, or both his dice rolls. When throwing a double, a player may move the same piece twice, or move two different pieces, if possible.
A player may decide not to use part or all of his roll, if he thinks that this is better for his position.
Variant for gamblers
The Arabian Abu'r-Raihan Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Beruni who lived from 973 to 1048 wrote several books, including one about India. In this book, he describes a somewhat different variant of 4-handed Chaturanga. The game here has a large element of gambling in it.
The description below is based on my own interpretation of certain texts, given by Murray in his History of Chess.
Pieces and opening setup are the same as in the games, described above. Each player plays for himself.
Players throw with two six-sided dice, and move, similar as above: with a 1 or 5, the king or a pawn is moved; with a 2 the boat is moved, with a 3 the knight, and with a 4 or 6 the rook (elephant). As before can a player make 0, 1 or 2 moves, as he, and the dice wish.
Each piece has a certain value. The king has value 5, the elephant has value 4, the knight has value 3, the boat has value 2, and pawns have value 1 each. Each player keeps all the pieces that he has taken, and gets these paid at the end of the game from the respective owners, for a price per point which was agreed upon at the start of the game.
However, when a player has taken all three opponents kings, while his own king is not taken, then he gets paid the total value of all opponents pieces, which is 54. He still has to pay his own pieces, which is at most 13, so he wins in this case at least 41.
Kings are taken as any other piece. When a king is taken, the player continues with his other pieces as normal. When long enough, nothing interesting has happened in the game, the players should decide on ending the game, and pieces are paid out.
Modern variant
At least until the end of the 19th century, a variant of 4-handed Chaturanga was played in several parts of India.
The game is played without dice. Pieces move as in the games described above.
Players form two teams of two players. Red and yellow form a team, and green and black form a team.
Kings are not exchanged. The first team that has taken both opponents kings wins the game.
Some rules are not clear. My suggestions: a player can still move his pieces after his king is taken. Pawns promote to any of the three types: rook, knight or boat, as wished by the player, and not depending on the number of pieces still owned by that player.
Written by Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: 1995. Last modified: February 9, 1998.
I've heard before that it was originally a four player game in India and the persians altered it and made the current two player chess game we play today.
It seems you are right Yazzmode.Some information on Chaturanga and Chaturanga rules.
Maybe the answer is in that evolution of the
game.And chess is one of those games that,wait,chess is the
only mind game,unique,a game that by folk legend was a
creation of a prisoner serving time in a jail and saving his
everyday bread to make the peaces to play with(im sure you all
know the story if you know how to play chess).When you realy
gett deep into it you could say that it was a creation of a alien
nature.tamble();Defenetly it is creation of one inteligent being,if
it was a man i beleve that he himself didnt know the full
potential of what he/she had created.Artefical inteligense is
tested on this game(think about it).I take you are all serious
people and i will not take sides.I was tought that it began in a
land that had a sah(or shah,i dont know).The concept is that the
board is the world-flat plate and that two armies batle one
another.ALIENS man ,and all this time i was thinking that they
are here to do good but they are trying to devide us,...lol, and i
heard that they didnt want chess to have flying peaces (UFO)in
the old days.
i believe that it was invented in india but the version we play today is the iranian one, which was adopted from india and then modified.
"If they attack Iran, of course I will fight. But I will be fighting to defend Iran... my land. I will not be fighting for the government and the nuclear cause." ~ Hamid, veteran of the Iran Iraq War
i believe that it was invented in india but the version we play today is the iranian one, which was adopted from india and then modified.
You may be right Iranian.Have you ever played Ludo.Did you notice the similarity between Ludo and Chaturanga.I think Ludo is a simplified version of Chaturanga.What's you view.
Many countries claim to have invented the chess game in some
incipient form. However the most commonly held view among historians is
that chess originated in ancient Iran, which included vast stretches of the ancient world inluding modern day India (known then as Hindustan), Pakistan, and Afghanistan
to name only a few -- it should be noted that any modern or ancient
state that has a "-stan" suffix was once part of the ancient Persian
empire as "-stan" translates to "state" or "province." The earliest
mention of Shatranj or alternatively Chaturanga, or any version of chess, appears in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, written circa 500 BC. The oldest known chess pieces have been found in excavations of Moen jo Daro in Sindhdated to 3000 BC, during which time the Persians inhabited the area.
One ancient text refers to Shah Ardashir, who ruled 224 - 241 AD, as a
master of the game.
Chess eventually spread westward to Europe and eastward as far as Japan,
spawning variants as it went. One theory suggests that it migrated from
India to Persia, where its terminology was translated into Persian and it name changed to chatrang. The entrance of chess into Europe, notably, is marked by a massive improvement in the powers of the queen. The oldest known texts describing chess seem to indicate a bi-directional spread from the Persian empire. From Persia it entered the Islamic world, where the names of its pieces largely remained in their Persian forms in early Islamic times. Its name became shatranj, which continued in Spanish as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in most of Europe was replaced by versions of the Persian word shāh = "king".
There is a theory that this name replacement happened because,
before the game of chess came to Europe, merchants coming to Europe
brought ornamental chess kings as curiosities and with them their name shāh, which Europeans mispronounced in various ways.
Checkmate: This is the English rendition of shāh māt, which is Persian for "the king is finished".
Rook: From the Persian rukh, which means "chariot", but also means "cheek" (part of the face).
The piece resembles a siege tower. It is also believed that it was
named after the mythical Persian bird of great power called the roc. In India, the piece is more popularly called haathi, which means "elephant".
Bishop. From the Persianpīl
means "the elephant", but in Europe and the western part of the Islamic
world people knew little or nothing about elephants, and the name of
the chessman entered Western Europe as Latin alfinus and
similar, a word with no other meaning (in Spanish, for example, it
evolved to the name "alfil"). This word "alfil" is actually the Arabic
for "elephant", where "al" means "the" and fil means "elephant". The
Spanish word would most certainly have been taken from the Islamic
provinces of Spain. The English name "bishop" is a rename inspired by
the conventional shape of the piece which resembles the tusk of an
elephant and the mitre of a bishop.
Queen. Persian farzīn = "vizier" became Arabic firzān, which entered western European languages as forms such as alfferza, fers, etc but was later replaced by "queen".
The game spread throughout the Islamic world after the Muslim conquest of Persia. Chess eventually reached Russia via Mongolia, where it was played at the beginning of the 7th century. It was introduced into Spain by the Moors in the 10th century, and described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering chess, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos. Chess also found its way across Siberia into Alaska.
6th century - alleged inception (in northwest India) of
Chaturanga ---- the chess variant popularly recognized as having spawned "Western" chess, a
theory that modern scholars now view with reserve. See origins of chess.
600CE - A reference in the Karnamuk-i-Artakhshatr-i-Papakan
is the earliest surviving literary evidence of "Western" Chess.
ca. 720 CE - Chess is brought to the Muslim world.
ca. 840 CE - Earliest surviving chess problems by Caliph Billah
of Baghdad.
ca. 900 CE - Entry on Chess in the Chinese work Huan Kwai Lu ('Book of Marvels').
997 CE - Versus de scachis is the earliest known work
mentioning chess in Christian Western Europe.
1008 - Mention of chess in the will of Count Uregel, another early reference.
10th century - As-Suli
writes Kitab Ash-Shatranj, the earliest known work to take a scientific approach to chess
strategy.
late 10th century - Dark and light squares are introduced on a chessboard.
The early history and origin of chess has been one of the most controversial topics of gaming history ("chronogamology" if you will), where chess came from has been the subject of legends since written records of chess began. While many websites claim that chess was invented at a particular time and place, in reality we know very little about the early days of chess.
The earliest "solid" evidence that we have comes from the middle-east where a number of Persian and Arabic manuscripts were written by the end of the 10th century, the exact dating of some of these documents is uncertain with some dating them as early as the 7th century. One work the middle-Persian Karnamak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Papakan is tentatively dated at 600 CE, but speculative dating has put it as early as 260 CE and as late as 1000 CE.
For a long time (1600-1850) before the discovery of the arabic manuscripts it was thought that Chess originated from Persia, however virtually all of the arabic texts claimed that chess arrived from India (via Persia). This was the primary reason that the origin of chess is now stated to be India, in addition to these texts a number of other pieces of evidence were used to support this claim in Harold Murray's "History of Chess" (1913) which after almost 100 years still remains the standard reference work on the history of chess.
However the other evidence is shaky and pre-1000 CE evidence of chess in India is very limited. One piece of evidence normally given is the description of chess in Alberuni's India (1017CE), however this is contentious with Sam Sloan claiming that the chess passage (which relates to a four-player form of chess thought to be unique to India) doesn't exist in the original arabic edition. The passage is in Edward Sachau 1888 translation of the work, but Sachau unfortunately does not reveal the source of his arabic edition.
The most common alternative for the birthplace of chess is given as China, on the basis of Chinese Chess which while significantly different from Chess is clearly related. Claims that chess originated from Chinese Chess are spurious, being illogical and lacking evidence, however claims that Chinese Chess originated from ordinary chess are equally spurious. The most likely explanation of the similarities is that both of the games share a common ancestor, phylogenetic analysis has shown that the ancestor is likely to have been closer to chess than Chinese Chess. Whether this proto-chess originated in China, India or some other country is something we simply don't know and may never do.
The most commonly accepted belief is that Chess originated in India sometime before 600 CE, but probably after the invention of Buddhism in the 6th century BCE. However this may well not be the accepted truth a hundred years from now
Chess originated in ancient India and was known as Chatur-Anga - Meaning 4 bodied, as it was played by 4 players. From this name we have its current name Shatranj. One such instance is in the Mahabharata when Pandavas and Kauravas play this game. Yudhistira the eldest of the Pandavas places his bets on his kingdom, his wife Draupadi and all other material possessions. And by a malevolent trick he loses to the Kauravas everything that he had placed his bets on. Consequently to humiliate the Pandavas, Dushasana one of the evil Kaurava brothers takes hold of Draupadi whom Yudhisthira has lost to the Kauravas, and tries to disrobe her in front of the assembled court. The Pandavas though powerful are helpless as they have lost Draupadi and according to the rules of the game they have no claim on her anymore.
A possible forerunner of Chess is an Indian game, known as Ashtapada, which means in Sanskrit a square board of 64 squares, 8 rows of 8 squares. It was played with dice and pieces, a race game possibly going back to the fifth century BC. Chinese records mention its introduction from India to China as early as 220 BC to 65 AD, roughly during the early Han Dynasty.
The likelihood of a race-game being a forerunner of Chess is preserved in the promotion of a pawn to a piece when reaching the 8th row. Hinduism prohibits gambling. The revival of Hinduism during the Gupta Dynasty led to an enforcement of this antigambling policy in the 6th century AD. This is used as an argument by some scholars for supporting the idea of an Indian origin of Chess. It is stated that the suppression of dice forced the transformation of a race game into a strategic game. When I discussed this with some Indian historians during a visit to India, I got clarification that the gambling inhibition was local and did not apply to total India.
"It is interesting to note that early Persian and Arabic tradition is unanimous in ascribing the game of chess to India. The details naturally vary in different works and the names in the tradition are manifestly apocryphal.
"Chess is usually associated with the decimal numerals as an Indian invention, and its introduction into Persia is persistently connected with the introduction of the book 'Kalila wa Dimna' (the Fables of Pilpay), in the reign of the Sasanian monarch, Khusraw I Nushirwan, 531 A.D., and European scholars of Sanskrit and Persian generally accept the traditional date of the introduction of this book as established. The so-called Arabic numerals are well-known to be really Indian.
"Finally, a comparison of the arrangement and method of the European game of the 11th and 13th centuries A.D. with the Indian game as existing today and as described in the earlier records supports the same conclusion.
"We must accordingly conclude that our European chess is a direct descendant of an Indian game played in the 7th century with substantially the same arrangement and method as in Europe five centuries later, the game having been adopted first by the Persians, then handed on by the Persians to the Muslim world, and finally borrowed from Islam by Christian Europe."
To substantiate the assertions as to the origin of the Asiatic branch of chess, as quoted above from Cho-Yo, Mr. Murray has this to say:
"Games of a similar nature exist today in other parts of Asia than India, The Burmese 'sittuyin', the Siamese 'makruk', the Annamese 'chhoen trang', the Malay 'chator', the Tibetan 'chandaraki', the Mongol 'shatara', the Chinese 'siang k'i', the Corean 'tjyang keui', and the Japanese 'sho-gi', are all war games exhibiting the same great diversity of pieces which is the most distinctive feature of chess.
"There is naturally far less direct evidence respecting the ancestry of these games than in the case of European chess, but there can be no doubt that all these games are descended from the sam original Indian game. The names 'sittuyin'' (Burmese), 'chhoen trang' (Annamese), and 'chandaraki' (Tibetan) certainly, and the names 'chator' (Malay) and 'shatara' (Mongol) probably, reproduce the Sanskrit 'chaturanga'."
In respect to the arrangement of pieces and board in the Malay, Tibetan and Mongol games Mr. Murray points out that they are identified very closely with the Indian game, but he further comments that the relation of the Chinese, Corean, and Japanese games are "not so obvious." He leaves no doubt, however, that both the Corean and Japanese games are derivatives of the older form of the Chinese game. Mention is made of Chinese writings which refer to the introduction of modifications in their game about 1279 B.C. Such coincidental features as the Chariot with the move of the Rook occupying the corner squares, and the Horse with the characteristic move of the Knight occupying adjoining squares indicate, and not accidentally, that the Chinese games are of Indian origin.
In summarizing, we find this salient and self-evident fact. To again use Mr. Murray's words: "The broad lines of the diffusion of chess from India are fairly clear. Its earliest advance was probably westwards to Persia; the eastward advance appears to have been rather later, and at least three lines of advance may be traced." The first group, we are able to clearly trace, carried the game by Kashmir to the far east via China, Korea, and Japan. The second line, and most probably the same by which Buddhism traveled, carried the game to Further India (where it took on dissimilar features to that of Indian chess). Somewhat later the game spread from the southeast coast of India to the Malay Peninsula. How the game may have reached Tibet and the northern tribes of Asia is yet in doubt. Very ancient Persian manuscripts have revealed that the Zoroastrians had meanwhile passed on chess to the Eastern Roman Empire, and, further documents also disclose that, resulting from the Mohammedan conquest of Persia, Islam acquainted herself with the game. Following this period the Muslims became the most prolific pioneers of chess, thus bringing into being the first concepts of the Occidental branch, and carrying their game as far west as Spain and as far east as India where they ascribed the Arabic nomenclature on the Northern and Central provinces of the peninsula. There is in existence pronounced evidence of the fact that Christian Europe took up the study of chess from the Moors as early as 1000 A.D. Upon gaining a foothold on the Mediterranean shores, it gradually spread northward over France and Germany to Great Britain, to Scandinavia, and to Iceland.
Explanation of Chess and arrangement of Vin-Artakhshir.
Translation by J. C. Tarapore, Vijrishn I Chatrang,
Bombay, 1932
(1) It is said thus that during the reign of Khosraw of immortal
soul1, Divsaram2, a great king of India, for the trial of
the wisdom and knowledge of the Iranians and for securing his
own benefit set up the game of Chatrang (or chess); 16 pieces
were made of diamonds3 and 16 of red ruby4. (2) With that
game of chess were sent 1200 camels loaded with gold and silver
and jewels and pearls5 and clothes, 90 elephants which carried
selected things came with them and Takhtritus6, who was the
vizier among the Indians, came with them.
(3) In the letter it was written thus, "As your name is the
King of Kings, all your emperorship over us connotes that your
wise men should be wiser than ours. Either you send us an explanation
of this game of chess or send revenue7 and tribute8 to us."
(4) The King of Kings asked for 4 days' time, and there was nobody
among the wise of the country of Iran who could explain that game
of chess.
(5) On the third day Vazorgmitro, son of Bkhte, stood up
on his legs. (6) He said, "Be thou immortal! for this reason
I did not expose the explanation of the game of chess till this
day so that you and those who are from the country of Iran should
know that I am wiser than any man in the country of Iran. (7)
I shall solve the game of chess easily and secure revenue and
tribute from Divsaram and I shall prepare another thing and shall
send it to Divsaram which he shall not be able to solve and I
shall exact double the tribute from him; and be you sure of this
that you deserve the emperorship, and the wise men here are wiser
than those of Divsaram.'' (8) The Emperor thrice said, "O
Vazorgmitro! my Takhtritus, may you live long." He ordered
12000 jjans9 to be awarded to Vazorgmitro.
(9) Next day Vazorgmitro called Takhtritus before him and said,
"Divsaram made this game of chess like war. (10) He made
the two generals like the Kings (who are) essential for the left
and the right10, the farzin11 to resemble the chief of the
warriors, the elephant12 to resemble the chieftain protecting
the rear, the knight13 to resemble the chief of the horsemen,
(and) the pawns to resemble the foot-soldiers who lead in battle."
(11) After this Takhtritus arranged the game of chess and played
with Vazorgmitro and Vazorgmitro thrice defeated Takhtritus and
thereby great joy prevailed in the whole country.
12) Then Takhtritus rose on his legs. (13) He said, "Be
you immortal! The Creator has given you this greatness and glory
and courage and victory and made you the lord of Iran and non-Iranian
countries. (14) Several wise people of the Indians prepared this
game of chess after great toil and trouble and sent it to this
place and none could solve it. (15) Your Vazorgmitro through his
innate wisdom explained it easily and quickly14. (16) He has
thus by this wealth increased the treasures of the Emperor."
17) The next day the Emperor called Vazorgmitro before him. (18)
He said to Vazorgmitro, "O my Vazorgmitro! what is that thing
you said you would devise and send to Divsaram?"
(19) Vazorgmitro said, "Among the monarchs of this millennium
Ardashir was the most industrious and wisest and by the name
of King Ardashir I shall call the game Vin-Artakhshir15.
(20) 1 shall make the board of the Vin-Artakhshir like the earth
Spandarmad. (21) And 30 pieces I shall make like the 30 days and
nights, I shall make 15 white to resemble the day and 15 black
to resemble the night. (22) The turning of the board I shall make
like the revolution of the stars and the rotation of the sky.
(23) I shall make one of these revolutions like Ohrmazd who is
one and from whom is granted all goodness. (24) Two I shall make
to resemble the spirit and earthly matter. (25) Three I shall
make to resemble good thoughts and good words and good deeds,
and thought and word and action. (26) Four I shall make to resemble
the four elements of which man is made, and the four points of
the earth: east; and west, south and north. (27) Five I shall
make to resemble the live lights of the sun and the moon and the
stars and fire and the lights which come from the heavens. (28)
Six I shall make to resemble the 6 periods of the Gahambars16.
(29) I shall make the arrangement of Vin-Artakhshir on the board
to resemble the creation of the creatures by Ohrmazd on this earth.
(30) I shall make the movements and the progress in a circle of
the pieces to resemble the movements of men in this world whose
intelligence is connected to spiritual (powers), and who turn
and pass on17 under the influence of the seven (planets) and
the twelve (signs of the Zodiac), and when possible they smite
and overcome one another just as men in this world smite one another.
(31) And when during the progress of this revolution all the pieces
are overcome, they shall be like the men who pass away from this
earth, and when they are rearranged they resemble men who become
revived at the time of the resurrection [Frashegird].
(32) The King of Kings when he heard these words became pleased
and ordered 12,000 Arab horses of the same hair, head to foot
decked with gold and pearl, and 12,000 young selected men from
the country of Iran, 12,000 seven plated armors18, and 12,000
well-shapen steel swords Indian forged, 12,000 girdles seven-eyed
19, and besides all the 12,000 men and horses were adorned like
children adorned. (33) Vazorgmitro of Bokhte was made the leader
over them and on an auspicious day with the good gift and help
of God he went to India.
(34) Divsaram, the great King of the Indians, when he saw that
game asked for 40 days' time from Vazorgmitro, the son of Bokhte.
(35) There was nobody from among the sages of India who could
understand the explanation of that Vin-Artakhshir. (36) Vazorgmitro
next got subsidy and tribute from Divsaram and with good presents
and great honor he returned to the country of Iran.
(37) The explanation of chess is this that even as the wise with
power have said that victory is attained through wisdom so the
essentials of this game must be known through wisdom.
(38) The play of chess is this that by watching and striving to
keep watch over one's own pieces one should be more industrious
so that the power of the other player may be taken away, and not
to play a bad game in the hope of taking away the pieces of the
other player, and while using a piece and preserving the others
and observing with perfect mind and in other respects one should
observe the rules as given in the treatise.
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