Chess and chaturanga

Chess and chaturanga

Subject: History

Section: Art and Culture

Context: Prime Minister will inaugurate the world’s biggest chess event at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai.

Concept:

Chaturanga is an old Indian two-player board game that was invented at least 1,500 years ago and is believed to be the earliest predecessor of the game of chess. The Arabians adapted it to a game they called Shatranjin Sassanid Persia, which was later embraced by the Europeans during the Medieval Period and, after a few modifications, is now known as chess.

Historical evidences of chess

• There is a close resemblance of modern chess in various types of terracotta games-men found in Lothal.
• Excavation conducted in Tamil Nadu provided some terracotta cylindrical pieces made from clay and burnt in a kiln, and came in red and black, with their bottoms flat, presumably for easy handling on the board.
• Chaturanga is first known from the Gupta Empire in India around the 6th century CE.
• The earliest Indian reference to the game by name occurs in the seventh centuryD. in the poet Bāṇa’s Harṣacaritra. He says that under Harṣa, “cutting feet is (a matter) of boards with 64 squares, criminals having all four limbs”.
• Daṇdin’s Daśakumāracarita provides a possible late sixth century reference to the game in which there is an example of what chess players call today a “kibitzer”.
• The first mention of the game in Persia is in the seventh century Persian history, Artakhshatr-i-Papakan. Its Persian designation shatranj, comes from Sanskrit, ‘chaturaṅga’.

Chess and Chaturanga:

Both chess, chaturanga depicts a war between two armies. Each of the game’s pieces represents one of the four divisions of the Indian army at that time. The name of the game, chaturanga, roughly translates to “four limbs” from Sanskrit, an allusion to those divisions, which were infantry, elephantry, cavalry, and chariots.

Differences

• The first difference between chaturanga and chess lies in their boards, chaturanga game was played on a plain, uncheckered
• A chief distinctionin rules is that in Chaturanga, to win, the player must eliminate all the pieces of the opponent, except their king. There was no checkmate; thus, the king had to be captured. There were no checks in chaturanga, surrounded kings would be forced to move to an attacked square and get captured. If a player manages to stalemate the opponent, the player who is stalemated wins the game. This contradicts with the rule in modern chess.
• In the modern version of chess, the kings are placed facing each other. However, in the game of Chaturanga, the kings were placed in a diagonally opposite fashion.

Changes in rules: The chaturanga rules not fully known, presumed to be the ancestor of chess and similar games.

• The foot-soldier moved and captured just like a regular pawn in chess.
• In chaturanga the foot-soldier could be promoted whereas in chess, the pawn is promoted.
• The elephant could move diagonally two squares. Later it was modified and became the bishop in chess.
• The horse moved just like the knight in chess.
• The chariot moved just like the rook in chess.
• The minister moved diagonally one square. This piece was modified later and became much more potent. It is known  as the queen in chess.
• The king moved just like today’s king.