CHESMAYNE
wonderful
tonight
spandau ballet - true
Chaturanga - Shatranj
See ‘History’. Chaturanga: literally, the four corners,
referring to the four divisions of a traditional Indian army - the infantry (PAs from peons, pedons
‘foot-troops’), the cavalry, the arches (now called BSs because of a
misinterpretation of their medieval helmets) and the elephants which used to carry wooden
structures on their backs called ‘castles’, from which the warriors could take aim at
the enemy. In Europe the elephants were
omitted, but the remaining ‘castles’ were still moved across the board as the
elephants had been, even though the true ‘castle’ in chess is formed by the ‘rochade ’ move (castling, %Q,
%K). Pavle Bidev in his thesis ‘Sah
simbol Kosmosa’ concluded that Chaturanga was invented between 606-620 AD. Chaturanga is essentially the same game as Shatranj. It used an unchequered board (called the ‘ashtapada ’ meaning ‘eight square’)
and is regarded as the precursor of traditional chess. It is believed to have been adopted from a
race game related to ‘parcheesi’, the forerunner of the game of Ludo.
Monogram: Name:
1 KI = King
2 AD = Adviser
2 RO = Rook
2 KT = Knight
2 MR = Minister
8 BQ = Baidaq
Each side has 16 MPs/mps
The AD (AD1 and AD2) moves 1
cell diagonally in any direction. The MR (MR1 and MR2) moves 2 cells
diagonally in any direction jumping over the intervening cell. BQs (BQ1 to BQ8) move forward one cell at a
time. Castling is not permitted. Stalemate is a win for the side giving it.
For many people, the oldest ancestor of Chess is a game
for 4 players, called Chaturanga. It is
depicted as a diced game where four teams of 8 pieces fight for a final victory.
Simplistically, this game is
supposed to illustrate a remote period when India was divided into several rival kingdoms, always at war. Later on, a wise man would have come and proposed to gather the pieces in
two opposing teams. One extra King per side would have been
given the role of a General, the chance would have been
eliminated for pure combination: Chess was born!
This is a very seducing story. Simple, understandable, bearing some
logic. This story is so nice that it is
now widely repeated and copied on hundreds of pages on the Internet. Now, I’m sorry to be so disappointing:
CAUTION : SO FAR,
THIS THEORY IS WRONG !
If you are involved in teaching, writing, publishing, please stop copying
this tale, get informed!
HOW IT
BEGAN
Sir Williams Jones (who first remarked the links
between Indo-European idioms), asserted in 1790 that Chess had been invented by the wife of Ravan, king of
Lanca (Ceylon), in order to amuse him while he was besieged in his city by
Rama. This was happening in the “second
age of the world”, in the 4th millennium before Christ! His informant was the Brahman Radhakant who
was referring to the Four-Handed Chess (which was played in
Several forms of Chess were played in
This Chaturanga was undoubtedly the oldest ancestor for
Captain Hiram Cox in 1801 who claimed that it was the rudimental game of Chess
and that the 2-Handed game was a modification of it.
Duncan Forbes wrote ‘The History of Chess’ in 1855 where he developed the complete
theory: a primitive 4-Handed dice-Chess was practiced first, and, from the
difficulty of always securing four players, the game gradually became
2-Handed. Later on, the dice were
abandoned, maybe under religious pressure.
Forbes rejected the legend of Lanka, however he kept relying on the Bhavishya Purana which were then
estimated 3000 or 5000 years old.
However, the Dutch historian, Anton van der Linde,
pointed out in 1874 that these texts were not older than the 10th
century AD. This was too hard to
believe for authors like Edward Falkener (1892) who was convinced of a very
great antiquity. Also, the famous American ethnologist Stewart Culin made his
personal hypothesis that the respective apparition order of board-games in
mankinds history should have been: race game for 2, race game for 4, chess for
4 and, finally, chess for 2. He had no
fact to sustain this theory which appears somewhat artificial today.
The final word went to the great historian Harold James
Murray who cleared the question in his never surpassed monument: ‘History of Chess’, more than 900 pages
of erudition published in 1913. He
wrote that definitive sentence:
“I find this
hypothesis incredible”.
THE
STATUS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
First, the Purana
are no more considered 5000 years old, but 2500 for their oldest parts. Then, three texts refer to the passage cited
by Jones and Forbes. It has been
demonstrated (Murray, 1913, p48-49) that the three of them go back to the same
source, the Tithitattva of
Raghunandana, a writer of the late 15th or early 16th
century. Moreover, it has been since proved that neither the Bhavishya Purana (which was not
accessible to European scholars until the end of the 19th century)
nor the Bhavishyottara Purana
contain no Chess passage.
There are Indian texts mentioning the 4-Handed
Chaturanga which are older than the Tithitattva. The first ones are Somesvara’s Manasollasa circa 1,110 and Kalhana’s Rajatarangini,
a metrical chronique of the Kings of
His rules are not always clear.
Most of the details we know come from Raghunandana.
Starting position (left) and movements of
pieces (right)
COMMENTS
Then, the oldest reference for this 4-Handed game is
1,030 only. The 2-Handed game precedes the 4-Handed game for about four
centuries.
The 4-Handed appears to have been known and practiced
in
It is true that Indians did not pay much attention in
writing the rules of their games as the Persians or the Arabs did. There are several texts which mention
Chaturanga in
Again, we find more information in a foreign source:
al-Adli, an Arabic master who wrote about 840.
He gave the difference between the rules and play of Chess in
The fact that the 4-Handed Chaturanga makes use of dice
has been often emphasized to assert its great antiquity. However, this is not a sound argument at
all. In those old times (let’s say before 1,500), Chess was not that model of
pure combination that it is today. The
game was slow, maybe was it a little boring.
Old times masters were more attracted by theoretical problems (openings, endings) than real plays. Playing with chance was not a shame, it
engaged a dialog with Gods. The success of games like Nard (kind of
Backgammon), Pachisi, Chapur and many other Indian games are here to testify
that. Nard was at its summum of
popularity in India between the 7th and 10th centuries,
and the Indian cruciform race games (Pachisi, Chaupur) could been invented at
the same period. Then, it is not
surprising that a game for 4 was more appreciated with the help of dice to add
some drama into the play. In addition, it should be insisted that Chess
and dice were by no mean incompatible.
Muslims played ‘Oblong
Chess’ (over a 4 x 16 board) with dice, dice were often used in medieval
Europe as an alternative of the regular play (for instance in Huon de
Bordeaux, a French romance from the 13th century). That completely kills the point.
Another strange aspect of 4-Handed Chaturanga has been
put forward to assert his antiquity: the use of Ships instead of Chariots and their switched
positions with the Elephants, here placed at the corners
of the board. However, this is merely
a reflection of Chess habits in
There is a true attraction in
|
|
Find
the rules of Four Handed Chaturanga, |
|
|
Retrouvez les règles du Chaturanga à 4 joueurs dans le Guide des Echecs exotiques et
insolites |
An Indian Elephant
Subj: CHATURANGA
Date: 4/7/01 9:54:30
am Pacific Standard Time
From: PR@wanadoo.es (
To:
service@chess-poster.com
Please let me know if you know a place in
Thank
you very much. Regards.
chess-poster.com
Hello, PR@wanadoo.es (
Although we believe there are Chess websites in
Next, we provide you with some links containing information about the game of
Chaturanga. These sites in turn may yield more information pointing to
other links about the game and a possible Chaturanga board game salesman.
http://www.chaturanga.com/
http://www.ishipress.com/origin.htm
http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/shatranj.html
http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html
Thank you for visiting our website.
chess-poster.com 4-08-2001
Chaturanga
Scientists generally assume that Chaturanga, played in
are remarkable. The rules below are after Murray and Gollon.
Opening
setup
The game is played on an uncheckered board of eight by eight
squares.
White
King
e1; Counsellor d1; Rook a1, h1; Knight b1, g1; Elephant c1, f1; Pawns a2, b2,
c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2.
Black
King
d8; Counsellor e8; Rook a8, h8; Knight b8, g8; Elephant c8, f8; Pawns a7, b7,
c7, d7, e7, f7, g7, h7.
Moves of
pieces
The king moves as usual king, but additionally has the right
to make one knight-move during the game, provided that he hasn’t been checked
before he makes his knight-move. Castling
doesn’t exist.
The counsellor moves one square diagonally.
The elephant moves two squares diagonally, but may jump the
intervening square.
The knight moves as a usual knight.
The rook or chariot
moves as usual rook.
The pawn or soldier
moves and takes as a usual pawn, but may not make a double step on its first
move.
Promotion
Pawns can promote when they arrive at the last rank of
the board, but only to the type of piece that was on the promotion-square in
the opening setup, e.g., a white pawn that moves to b8 can only promote to a
knight. Additionally, promotion is only
possible when the player already lost a piece of the type, so the pawn moving
to b8 will only promote to a knight, when the white player already lost a
knight during the game. A consequence is that pawns never promote on e1 or
d8.
Mate and
stalemate
Object of the game is to mate the opponents king. The player that stalemates its opponent
loses the game.
Play
It!
Use Zillions of Games to play this game! If you have Zillions of Games installed, you
can download this game and play it.
From ‘Chess Variants’ web page.
Proto-Chaturanga
The origin of chess is still a riddle. Many think the first form was Chaturanga, an Indian name, or Chatrang, a Persian name, known from the 7th
century after Christ, as the oldest known form
of chess. Others, think that the Chinese
Xiang-Qi presents several older features and should come from an earlier
ancestor. The question is still
open. If it draws your interest, have a
look on the pages of the INITIATIVE GROUP KOENIGSTEIN.
For some reasons (detailled elsewhere) it has been interesting to
study what could have been a seminal so-called “Indo-Persian” game with only KI and PAs. Such a simple game could be classified as a
race game. We must be clear - this is
pure speculation and such a game has never been attested in any sources (so
far?). However, it is already fun to
play and shows what could have been the origin of the awkward moves of the PA
and its promotion.
A Zillions-of-Games file is available, so you can play this game
(below).
Another reconstruction is the Proto-Xiang-Qi on the “Chinese” side of these reconstructions.
Opening
setup
The game is played on an uncheckered board of eight by eight
squares/cells, also used for the Ashtapada a very old race game of India.
:A
KI-E01;
PAs - A02, B02, C02, D02, E02, F02, G02, H02.
:B
KI-D08;
PAs - A07, B07, C07, D07, E07, F07, G07, H07.
Moves of pieces
The KI moves 1 step/square/cell in any of the 8 directions as
usual KI. Of course, castling doesn’t
exist.
The PA moves 1 step/cell/square straight ahead and captures
1 step/cell/square diagonally ahead as a usual PA. It cannot make a ‘double step’ on its first move.
Promotion
PAs can promote to a Firzan when they arrive at the last rank of the
board.
The Firzan moves 1 step diagonally. (4 directions).
Mate and stalemate
There are three ways to win: checkmate, stalemate or isolate (leave it alone)
the opponents KI.
Would you like to play Proto-Chaturanga?
You can play Proto-Chaturanga if you own Z-o-G. Download
this zip-file below?