Chess History And Reminiscences
and claimed by a better acquaintance with chess and choice of
manuscripts and improved knowledge of the Sanskrit language to
have proved that the game of chess was invented in India and no
where else, in very remote times or, as he finally puts it at page
43: "But to conclude I think from all the evidence I have laid
before the reader, I may safely say, that the game of chess has
existed in India from the time of Pandu and his five sons down
to the reign of our gracious Sovereign Queen Victoria (who now
rules over these same Eastern realms), that is for a period of
five thousand years and that this very ancient game, in the
sacred language of the Brahmans, has, during that long space
of time retained its original and expressive name of Chaturanga."
The Chaturanga is ascribed to a period of about 3,000 years
before our era.
According to the Sanskrit Text of the Bavishya Purana from
which the account is taken, Prince Yudhisthira the eldest and
most renowned of the five sons of King Pandu, consulted Vyasa,
the wise man and nestor of the age as to the mysteries of a game
then said to be popular in the country, saying:
"Explain to me, O thou super-eminent in virtue, the nature of
the game that is played on the eight times eight square board.
Tell me, O my master, how the Chaturaji (Checkmate) may
be accomplished."
Vyasa thus replied:
"O, my Prince, having delineated a square board, with eight
houses on each of the four sides, then draw up the red warriors
on the east, on the south array the army clad in green, on the
west let the yellow troops be stationed, and let the black
combatants occupy the north.
"Let each player place his Elephant on the left of his King,
next to that the Horse, and last of all the Ship, and in each of
the four Armies, let the Infantry be drawn up in front. The Ship
shall occupy the left hand corner next to it the Horse, then the
Elephant, and lastly the King, the Foot Soldiers, as are stated
being drawn up in front."
The sage commences general directions for play with the
following advice:
"Let each player preserve his own forces with excessive care,
and remember that the King is the most important of all."
The sage adds:
"O Prince, from inattention to the humbler forces the king
himself may fall into disaster."
"If, on throwing the die, the number should turn up five, the
King or one of the Pawns must move; if four, the Elephant; if
three, the Horse; and if the throw be two, then, O Prince, the
Ship must move."
------
ON THE MOVES OF THE PIECES
"The King moves one square in all directions; the Pawn moves
one square straightforward, but smites an enemy through either
angle, in advance; the Elephant, O Prince of many lands, moves,
(so far as his path is clear), In the direction of the four
cardinal points, according to his own pleasure. The Horse moves
over the three squares in an oblique direction; and the Ship, O
Yudhisthira, moves two squares diagonally."
NOTE. The Elephant had the same move as our Rook has, the Horse
the same as our Knight. The ship had two clear moves diagonally
(a limited form of our Bishop). The King one square in all
directions the same as now. The Pawn one square straightforward.
There was no Queen in the Chaturanga, but a piece, with a one
square move, existed in the two handed modified Chatrang. The
Queen, of present powers is first mentioned in the game at the
end of the 15th century, when the works of the Spanish writers
Lucena and Vicenz appeared in 1495.
------
About two thousand six hundred years are supposed to have
elapsed between the time of King Pandu, Prince Yudhisthira,
Vyasa, and the records of the ancient Chaturanga, to the days of
Alexander the Great, to which period the references concerning
chess and the Indian Kings contained in Eastern accounts,
Firdausi's Persian Shahnama and the Asiatic Society's M.S.
presented to them by Major Price, relate.
NOTE. The Shahnama, it is recorded, occupied thirty years in its
preparation and contains one hundred and twenty thousand verses.
The long interval of three or four thousand years, between the
date ascribed to the Chaturanga, and its reappearance as the
Chatrang in Persia, and the Shatranj in Arabia, has perplexed
all writers, for none can offer a vestige of trace of evidence,
either of the conversion of Chaturanga into Chatrang or Shatranj;
or that the game ever continued to be practiced in its old form
either with or without the dice, it is conjectured merely, that
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