Chess History And Reminiscences
most ancient, and its accounts contain the earliest allusion worthy
of serious notice to anything partaking of the principles and form
of chess. The description of it is taken from the Sanskrit text,
and our first knowledge of it is obtained through the works of Dr.
Hyde, 1693, and Sir William Jones, 1784, Professor Duncan
Forbes in a History of Chess, dedicated to Sir Frederic Madden
and Howard Staunton, published in 1860, further elaborated the
researches of his predecessors and claims by the aid of his better
acquaintance with chess, and improved knowledge of the Sanskrit
to have proved the Chaturanga as the first form of chess beyond
a shadow of doubt. Accounts of it also appear in native works
published in Calcutta and Serampore in the first half of this
century, and it receives further confirmation in material points,
from eminent Sanskrit scholars, who refer to it rather incidentally
than as chess-players.
The accounts of the Hindu Chaturanga (which means game of
"four angas," four armies, or "four species of forces," in the
native language, Hasty-aswa-ratha-padatum, signifying
elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers) (According to the
Amara Kosha, and other native works as explained by Dr. Hyde and
Sir William Jones) give a description of the game sufficiently
clear to enable anyone to play it in the present day.
NOTE. We have tried it recently. So great of course is the element
of luck in the throw, that the percentage of skill though it might
tell in the long run is small, perhaps equal to that at Whist.
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With every allowance for more moderate estimates of antiquity by
some Sanskrit scholars, the Chaturanga comes before any
of the games mentioned in other countries sometimes called chess,
but which seem to bear no affinity to it. The oldest of these
games is one of China, 2300 B.C., attributed to Emperor Yao or
his time, another in Egypt of Queen Hatasu daughter of Thotmes
I, 1771 to 1778 B.C., and that inscribed on Medinet Abu at
Egyptian Thebes, the palace constructed by Rameses IV
(Rhameses Meiammun, supposed grandfather of Sesostris) who
according to the scrolls, we are told reigned 1559 to 1493 B.C.,
and is said to be the monarch represented on its walls. According
to the Bible Chronology he would be contemporary with Moses
who lived 1611 to 1491 B.C.
The moves of all the pieces employed in the Chaturanga were
the same as those made in Asia and Europe down to the close of
the Fifteenth century of our era. The Queen up to that time was
a piece with only a single square move, the Bishop in the original
game was represented by a ship, the Castle or Rook (as it is now
indiscriminately called) by an elephant, the Knight by a horse,
the two last named have never at any time undergone the slightest
change, the alteration in the Bishop consists only in the extension
of its power of two clear moves, to the entire command of its own
coloured diagonal. The total force on each side taking a Pawn
as 1 for the unit was about 26 in the Chaturanga as compared
with 32 in our game. There appear ample grounds for believing
that the dice used, constituted the greatest if not the main charm
in the game with the Brahmans, and that the elimination of that
element of chance and excitement, destroyed its popularity with
them.
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THE ANCIENT HINDU CHATURANGA
The Chaturanga signifies the game of four angas, or four species of
forces, which, according to the Amira Kosha of Amara Sinha and
other authorities means elephants, horses, chariots and foot
soldiers, which, in the native tongue is Hasty, aswa, ratha,
padatum. It was first brought to notice by the learned Dr. Thomas
Hyde of Oxford, in his work De Ludus Orientalibus, 1694.
About 90 years later the classical Sir William Jones, also of
Oxford, who became Judge of the Supreme Court in India from
1783 to 1794 gave translations of the accounts of the Chaturanga.
This was at a time when knowledge of Sanskrit had been only
just disclosed to European scholars, the code of Gentoo laws, &c.,
London 1781, being the first work mentioned, though by the year
1830 according to reviews, 760 books had appeared translated
from that language, no mention of the Chaturanga is found in
Europe before the time of Dr. Hyde, and all the traditionists
down to the days of Sir William Jones would seem to have been
unacquainted with it. In respect to Asia, so far as can be judged
or gathered, the details and essence of the Sanskrit translations
mentioned in the biography of the famous and magnificent Al
Mamun of Bagdad 813 to 833 or those for the enlightened Akbar
1556 to 1605 are unknown to European scholars; there are no
references to any translation of them, or to the nature of those
alluded to in the Fihrist of Abu L. Faraj.
Eminent contributors to the Archaeologia, F. Douce, 1793, and
Sir F. Madden, 1828, adopt the conclusions of Dr. Hyde and Sir
William Jones and they receive confirmation from native works of
this century, and incidentally from Sanskrit scholars who wrote
not as chess players.
Duncan Forbes, L.L.D., Professor of Oriental languages in
King's College, London, is the next great authority upon the
Chaturanga; in a work of 400 pages published in 1860 dedicated
to Sir Frederic Madden and Howard Staunton, Esq., he further
elaborated the investigations of Dr. Hyde and Sir William Jones
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