Читать книгу The History of Chess - H. J. R. Murray - Страница 11

Table of Contents

The earliest references in Subandhu, Bāṇa, &c.—The chess-tours in Rudraṭa.—Position in India c. 1000.—Some Arabic references.—Later Indian references.—Nīlakaṇṭ·ha.

Allusions to chess begin to appear in Sanskrit literature with the seventh century of our era, and a number of passages from works of that period have been discovered which have been held by Sanskrit scholars to contain references to chess. They vary considerably in value, and only one or two are sufficiently definite to convey any information as to the character of the game mentioned. In others, the only foundation for the belief that chess is intended is the use of the term ashṭāpada. Since this may equally well mean the older dice-game on the ashṭāpada board, these allusions cannot be conclusively attributed to the younger game of chess.¹

The earliest of these references occurs in Subandhu’s Vāsavadattā (ed. Hall, 284), a prose romance, written according to Macdonell (Skr. Lit., 232) ‘quite at the beginning of the seventh century’, which tells the popular story of Vāsavadattā, the Princess of Ujjayinī, and Udayana, King of Vatsa. In this work Subandhu thus describes the rainy season:

The time of the rains played its game with frogs for chessmen (nayadyūtair), which, yellow and green in colour, as if mottled with lac, leapt up on the black field (or garden-bed) squares (koshṭhikā).

The reference to chess in this passage appears to me to be quite satisfactory, although neither the name of the game nor the chessboard is mentioned. Had the race-game been intended, the men would almost certainly have been called sāri: the term nayadyūtair, which Thomas translates chessmen, is explained by the commentator as referring to chaturanga, and the comparison of the frogs hopping from plot to plot to the lac-stained chessmen moving from square to square is not inappropriate. From the mention of two colours only we may perhaps infer that Subandhu was thinking of a two-handed form of chess. Quite as interesting is the use of the word koshṭ·hikā, a cognate of koshṭ·hāgāra, for square. This word, meaning literally store-house or granary, is generally used in the sense of house, and thus presents a complete parallel to the Arabic bait, house, and the Italian casa (French case), house, which are both used in chess in the technical sense of square of the board. It has sometimes been suggested that the Sanskrit term was used as a result of the well-known Arabic legend of the reward bestowed upon the inventor of chess, a calculation which is so thoroughly Indian in character that it may be supposed to be much older that the earliest record of it now existing. It is more likely, I think, that the name koshṭ·hikā suggested the calculation of the sum of the grains of wheat than that the calculation suggested the name for the square of the board.

F. W. Thomas was the first to call attention to this passage in the ZDMG. (lii. 271). In a later note (ibid., liii. 364) he called attention to the use of the word varshākāla, ‘time of the rains’, or ‘the rains as Kāla’, and endeavoured to establish the reference to Kāla as a technicality of the game. As his argument is based upon the assumption that the Indian chessboard was already chequered in Subandhu’s time, it loses any weight it might otherwise have had. The chessboard has only begun to be chequered in Asia in our own time as the result of European influences. If the reference to Kāla has anything behind it, it is probably nothing more than the old and widely spread commonplace that fate plays its game with men for pieces.²

Slightly later than Subandhu is Bāṇa, who lived in the early part of the seventh century. Several possible references to chess have been discovered in his works by Macdonell and Thomas. Macdonell first called attention in the Athenaeum (July 24, 1897) to a passage in the Harshachārita, ‘the earliest attempt at historical romance in Indian literature’, in which Bāṇa gives an account of Srīharsha (Harshavardhana), the famous King of Kānyakubja,³ and supreme ruler of Northern India from 606 to 648 A.D., under whose patronage the work was produced. The passage contains a number of puns, and among others Bāṇa in describing the peace and good order of the realm remarks (Bombay edn., p. 86, 1. 11; Kashmir edn., p. 182, 1. 1) that

under this monarch (Srīharsha) … only bees (shatpada) quarrel in collecting dews (dues); the only feet cut off are those in metre: only ashṭāpadas teach the positions of the chaturanga.⁴

This reference seems to me particularly clear, and the rhetorical figure (parisankhyā) employed is admirably illustrated by the play on the two meanings of the word chaturanga. The mention of the name of the game, chaturanga, makes it plain that in this passage the word ashṭāpada is used in its original sense of a game-board, and not as the name of a game.

Thomas (ZDMG., lii. 272) has pointed to another passage of a highly figurative character in the same work. In this Bāṇa (Bombay edn., p. 10, 11. 10–12; Kashmir edn., p. 20, 11. 5–8; Eng. trans., p. 6) describes an angry sage as

contracting a frown which, as if the presence of Kāla had been obtained, darkened the ashṭāpada of his forehead, and was the crocodile ornament which bedecks the wives of Yama.

The scholiast explains ashṭāpada as chaturangaphalaka, i.e. the chessboard, but there is nothing in the passage itself to require chess. The simile would be suggested by the resemblance between the deep furrows on the brow of the angry sage, and the dividing lines of the game-board. Thomas suggested an explanation depending on the ‘mottled squares of the chessboard’: this is of course an anachronism.

Two passages also from Bāṇa’s Kādambarī have been cited as possibly containing references to chess. In Redding’s English version they are thus translated:

dice and chessmen (sāryaksheshu) alone left empty squares (p. 6),

and

Chandrapida went away at her departure followed by maidens sent for his amusement by the poetess at Kādambarī’s bidding, players on lute and pipe, singers, skilful dice and draught (ashṭāpada) players, practised painters and reciters of graceful verses (p. 152).

I do not think that we can accept either of these allusions as relating to chess. The use of the word sāri in the earlier passage makes it practically certain that a race-game of the pachīsī type is intended. In the second there is nothing to exclude the possibility that the older ashṭāpada game was intended.

Much more certain are the two references from Kashmirian poets of the ninth century which Jacobi gave in the ZDMG. in 1896 (1. 227 ff.). The earlier of these occurs in the Haravijaya or Victory of Siva (xii. 9), an extensive mahākāvya or artificial epic, by Ratnākara, a poet who mentions Bālabrihaspati or Chippata-Jayāpīda, King of Kashmīr, 837–47, as his patron, and whom a later writer, Kalhaṇa (Rājataranginī, v. 34), states to have been celebrated under Avahtivarman, 857–84. The chess passage is worded with the double meaning that was so favourite a device of the later Sanskrit poets. The poet is speaking of Aṭṭahāsa, one of Siva’s attendants, and if we read the passage one way it describes him as one

who continually turned the enemy in spite of the latter’s four-square force, of his abundance of foot-soldiers, horses, chariots, and elephants, and of his skilled operations with peace (sandhi) and war (vigraha), into one whom defeat never left (anashṭa-āpadam).

When read another way it may be translated—

who turned not into a chessboard (an-ashṭāpadam) the enemy who had a four-square (chaturasra) form, who abounded in foot-soldiers (patli), horses (ashwa), chariots (rat·ha), and elephants (dvipa), and who had the form (vigraha) of combination (sandhi),

i.e. according to Jacobi (op. cit., 228) and Macdonell (JRAS., 123), of two halves folding together, with reference to the symmetry of the arrangement. There can be no doubt from the mention of the four members along with the ashṭāpada that chess is intended, notwithstanding the non-use of the word chaturanga. The commentator, Alaka, son of Rājanaka Jayānaka, who probably lived in the 12th c., so understood it, for he explains ashṭāpada as chaturaṅgaphalaka.

The second passage is from the Kāvyālaṅkāra, a work by a slightly later writer, Rudraṭa, who is ascribed to the reign of Sankaravarman, 884–903 (adhyaya 6). He is enumerating different kinds of stanzas, composed to imitate the forms of various objects, and speaks (v. 2) of verses which have the shapes of

wheel, sword, club, bow, spear, trident, and plough, which are to be read according to the chessboard squares (chaturangapīṭ·ha) of the chariot (rat·ha), horse (turaga), elephant (gaja), &c.

The commentator Nami, who dates his work 1125 Vikr. = 1069 A.D., and who lived in Guzerat, explains chaturangapiṭha as chaturangaphalaka, and adds the comment ‘known to players’, and etc. as nara, by which we are to understand the foot-soldier (patti).⁵

1. Knight’s Tour (Rudraṭa).

2. Rook’s Tour (Rudraṭa).

3. Elephant’s Tour (Rudraṭa).

Rudraṭa next goes on to give examples of these metrical puzzles, and Jacobi discusses the three chess-puzzles at considerable length. The principle of construction is as follows: certain syllables are placed in the various squares of a half chessboard in such a way that whether the syllables be read straight on as if there were no chessboard, or be read in accordance with the moves of a particular piece the same verse is obtained. The ability to frame such puzzles argues considerable acquaintance with the moves of the chess-pieces, and the metrical conditions of the puzzle add largely to the difficulty of construction.

There is no difficulty in the cases of the rathapadapātha (chariot or rook tour) and the turagapadapātha (Knight’s tour). With the help of the commentator the solutions are easily ascertained. The move of the Turaga or Horse is identical with the existing move of the Knight. The Rat·ha’s move also is consistent with the existing move of the Rook. Both tours are so constructed that they can easily be extended to cover the whole board. Jacobi (op. cit., 229) notes that the Knight’s tour appears to have been very popular, since the commentator Nami gives a sloka which names the squares of the chessboard by akshara ha to sa.

The gajapadapātha, or Elephant’s tour, presents considerable difficulty. In the first place a complete tour is impossible of construction with the move ordinarily associated with the Elephant (Bishop) in early chess. We have accordingly to do here with an unusual move. If we examine the commentator’s solution, exhibited in diagram 3 above, we see that it consists of two halves, each occupying two lines of the board, that the two halves are precisely the same, and that they are connected by a move from h7 to a6, right across the board. Jacobi treated the diagram as containing two separate solutions, each being an Elephant’s tour upon two lines of the board, and ignored the abnormal leap that apparently connects them as inconsistent with any move ever used in any ordinary game of chess. He then shows that the moves in these two tours are consistent with a fivefold move which al-Bērūnī records as in use in the Punjab in his time, which is still the Elephant’s move in Burmese and Siamese chess, and which occurs in Japanese chess as the move of the differently named piece which occupies the same initial position as the Elephant in most varieties of chess. This move was one to the four diagonally adjacent squares and to the square immediately in front; see diagram 3 on p. 59. Jacobi’s explanation is, however, met by the obvious objection that such a move can easily be extended to cover the half board without the necessity to use an abnormal leap, and it is necessary to explain why it happened that Rudraṭa did not complete his tour in an orderly way when apparently possible, before we can accept the explanation. The fivefold move only admits one possible chess solution which is distinct from a Rook’s tour, viz. that of the diagram on this page, where the lower rows repeat the tour of the upper rows in the reverse direction. Rudraṭa’s problem, however, is not solely or even in the first case a chess one, but is governed by difficult metrical conditions—the syllables must give the same reading whether read as written or read in accordance with the chess rules. A brief examination of the diagram on this page shows that the tour there described allows the use of only two different syllables in the third and fourth lines; thus aababba, abbbabaa. The composer has to replace a and b by two syllables which will afford an approach to a meaning when arranged according to this sequence. Such a task approaches sufficiently near to impossibility to justify the abandonment of the chess condition in part; the composer has carried out a task of quite sufficient difficulty in providing two different metrical solutions for the tour over the two lines.⁶

A still later allusion to chess occurs, as Weber pointed out,⁷ in Halāyudha’s commentary on Pingala’s Chandaḥsutra, which belongs to the end of the tenth century. Halāyudha is discussing the form of certain metres, and incidentally instructs the reader to

draw a table of 64 squares (koshṭhāgara) as in the game of chaturanga.

These passages include all the known references to chess in Indian literature prior to the year 1000. We cannot claim that they establish much beyond the existence of the game, or that we have travelled far from the ‘impenetrable darkness’ of the earlier period. We can, perhaps, form some opinion of the spread and popularity of the game in India from these allusions. We find chess specially connected with the North-West of India, and the upper basin of the Ganges; we find it sufficiently well known in the 7th c. in this region for it to furnish comparisons to the poets and romancers of the time, and so well known in Kashmīr in the 9th c. that not only did poets employ similes derived from its special features, but that the ingenious also devised complicated and difficult puzzles which depended for their solution upon a practical knowledge of chess. The commentator on these puzzles shows that in the 11th c. the game was known in Guzerat, so that by that time we can safely assert that a knowledge of the game was common to all Northern India. The same century may have seen chess practised in the Deccan, if Dr. Bühler’s statement that the Mānasollāsa of the Ṣālukya (Solanki) Prince Someṣvara mentions chess among his recreations can be proved to be accurately translated.⁸ It is not clear whether chess had reached the South of the peninsula in the year 900, for the Arabic traveller, Abū Zaid as-Sīrāfī,⁹ when describing the gambling habits of the inhabitants of the coast opposite Ceylon, only alludes to nard and cock-fighting among their recreations. If, however, the date assigned to the Sinhalese commentator to the Brahma-jāla Sutta is correct, chess cannot have been much later in reaching the South of India and Ceylon.

The oldest foreign references to the practice of chess in India occur in Arabic works. Two of these are of great importance, for in place of the usual Arabic legends of the invention of chess which will be discussed in a later chapter, they give us more or less detailed accounts of the game as it was played in India at the time these works were compiled.

The earlier of these is a short note which probably formed part of the lost chess work of the Arabic master al-‘Adlī, who was at the height of his fame about 840 A.D. The note is preserved in two later MSS. based in part upon al-‘Adlī’s work, of which I have made great use in my chapters on the Muslim chess. In AH (f 24 a = C f 33a) the note concludes the section on derivative games which is introduced by the rubric ‘Al-‘Adlī has said’, which throughout the MS. precedes extracts from this writer. In H (f 20)¹⁰ the note is given in a much condensed form, but again concludes the same section from al-‘Adlī’s book. The passage in AH runs as follows:

And this form is the form of chess which the Persians took from the Indians, and which we took from the Persians. The Persians altered some of the rules, as is agreed. It is universally acknowledged that three things were produced from India, in which no other country anticipated it, and the like of which existed nowhere else: the book Kalīla wa Dimna, the nine cyphers with which one can count to infinity, and chess. The Indian claim to Astrology and Medicine is disputed by the Persians and Greeks.

Of the Indian rules of chess, one is observed by the people of Ḥijāz, and is called by them the Medinese Victory. If there be with the Kings two pieces, and the King can take a piece, then which ever first takes, so that the other is left with nothing, wins: for the other side will have been left at a particular time destitute of comrades. This is an Indian rule according to which the people of Medina play.

Another Indian rule is that when the King cannot find a square into which to move, and the other King has nothing wherewith to checkmate him, the first has won. But this is not a Persian rule.¹¹

Another Indian rule is that the Elephant is placed in the corner, and omits one square in a straight line to jump into the second in a straight line. And this it does in all the squares of the board. Each Elephant has 16 squares, and the company of Elephants can get into all the squares without collision. But in the form of chess which we have taken from the Persians, and which is played now, the Elephants have only half the board, and each Elephant has 8 squares. The number of squares has been reduced because they go slantwise.

An Indian was asked why they put the Elephant in the corner, and replied that the Commander of an army in which there are elephants must, owing to his importance, be given the place of commander of either the right or left wing. The Persians, however, think that he should be put next the King, being required for pursuit or flight. The Rooks, he said, are horses in … (a lacuna, after which the writer goes on to praise the horse and falcon, and discusses the relative precedence of the kings of Babylon, India, China)…. The value of the Indian Elephant is the same as that of the Firzān (counsellor, the mediaeval Queen).

The second account is to be found in al-Bērūnī’s India. The author, Abū’r-Raiḥān Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Bērūnī, was born at Khiva in Khwārizm in 362/973 and lived in Hyrcania on the Southern shores of the Caspian. He died at Ghazna 440/1048. He travelled into India but penetrated no farther than the Punjab, and, besides other works of a historical and chronological character, he wrote c.421/1030 an account of the religion, philosophy, literature, chronology, astronomy, customary laws, and astrology of India. His work is an extremely valuable record by a keen inquirer, but unfortunately he appears to have brought away a rather hazy impression of that variety of chess which was peculiar to India. In this, however, he is no worse than the vast majority of observers even in modern times. He says:¹²

In playing chess they move the Elephant straight on, not to the other sides, one square at a time like the Pawn, and also to the four corners like the Firzān. They say that these five squares—i.e. the one straight forward, and the others at the corners—are the places occupied by the trunk and the four feet of the Elephant.

They play chess, four persons at a time, with a pair of dice. Their arrangement of the figures on the chessboard is the following:

As this kind of chess is not known to us, I shall explain what I know of it. The four persons playing together sit so as to form a square round a chessboard, and throw the two dice in rotation. Of the numbers of the dice the 5 and 6 are not required. Accordingly, if the dice show 5 or 6, the player takes 1 instead of 5, and 4 instead of 6, because the figures of these two numerals are drawn in the following manner—

so as to exhibit a certain likeness of form to the 4 and the 1 in the Indian cyphers.

The name of King applies here to the Firzān (Minister).

Each number of the dice causes a move of one of the figures. The One moves either the Pawn or the King. Their moves are the same as in the common chess. The King may be taken, but is not required to leave his place.

The Two moves the Rook. It moves to the third square in the diagonal direction, as the Elephant moves in our chess.

The Three moves the Horse. Its move is the generally known one to the third square in the oblique direction.

The Four moves the Elephant. It moves in a straight line, as the Rook does in our chess, unless it be prevented from moving on. If this be the case, as sometimes happens, one of the dice removes the obstacle, and enables it to move on. Its smallest move is one square, its greatest 15 squares, because the dice sometimes show two fours, or two sixes, or a four and a six. In consequence of one of those numbers, the Elephant moves along the whole side on the margin of the chessboard: in consequence of the other number it moves along the other side on the margin of the chessboard, in case there be no impediment in the way. In consequence of these two numbers the Elephant in the course of his move occupies the two ends of the diagonal.

Four-handed chess. After al-Bērūnī.

The pieces have certain values, according to which the player gets his share of the stakes; for the pieces are taken and pass 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, and 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 possession of his own King. But if he has still his own King, and takes all three Kings, he gets 54—a number which represents a progression based on general consent, and not on an algebraic principle.

In the main this is a description of the four-handed dice-chess to which I devote the next chapter. Falkener (139–42) thought that al-Bērūnī only refers to this game, and that he never saw the two-handed game in India. But Falkener treats al-Bērūnī in a very cavalier manner, going so far as to declare that he can have been no chess-player. On the other hand Sachau, Gildemeister, v.d. Linde, and v.d. Lasa all agree in thinking that al-Bērūnī did see both games in India, and the last two writers think that it is possible to infer from his describing the four-handed game in terms of the ordinary chess, that he regarded the former game as a modification of the latter. This seems to be going too far: al-Bērūnī, writing for Arabic readers, would naturally explain the Indian game by comparing it with the Muslim game that his readers knew. But I think it is quite clear that al-Bērūnī did see the two-handed game in India, firstly from the fact that he gives two descriptions of the Elephant’s move; secondly from the curious clause that the name of the King applies also to the Firzān. Four-handed chess is still played in India, and it is usual to use the ordinary set of chessman for the purpose. The two allies share out the men of one colour, and one uses the ‘Queen’ as a King. I believe that the clause refers to this custom, and that it accordingly presumes the existence of ordinary chessmen and consequently a knowledge of the two-handed game.

1. Indian Four-handed chess.

2. Indian (al-‘Adlī).

3. Indian (al-Bērūnī).

The Elephant’s Move in early Indian chess.¹³

The fivefold move of the Elephant has been felt to be a difficulty. Falkener suggested that al-Bērūnī must have obtained it from Japanese chess! But there was no necessity to go so far afield. The move exists in the Burmese and Siamese games, and Rudraṭa’s tour raises the presumption that it existed in the Punjab or at least in Kashmīr before al-Bērūnī’s visit. Moreover, the al-‘Adlī account shows that the move of the Elephant was not fixed in India. We have records of no less than three moves of this piece having been tried in India, and with the discovery of this uncertainty the difficulty that has been felt ought to disappear.

These three moves are exhibited in the diagrams on this page. The first, a diagonal leap, became the widest spread, and it is probable that it is the oldest move. It is the only one which passed westwards, and it exists in Chinese chess also. It became again at a later date the ordinary Indian move. Al-Bērūnī records it as existing in the four-handed game, though in connexion with the Rook. The appearance of the other two moves may have been due to a feeling that the original move was not in harmony with the value of the elephants in war. In actual life they were highly esteemed as one of the most potent divisions of the army; on the chessboard it must have soon become evident that the Elephant was the weakest of the major pieces. The obvious remedy for this want of verisimilitude was to increase the power of move of the chess-piece. Al-‘Adlī records one such attempt. The power is evidently increased, twice as many squares are now accessible to each Elephant, and one or other of the four Elephants on the board can now reach each of the 64 squares; the power is now estimated to be equal to that of the Firzān (counsellor). The attempt which al-Bērūnī records appears to be a later one, and it has proved more enduring. It has the advantage of fitting in with the peculiarly Indian idea that the elephant is a five-limbed animal, which has resulted commonly in the description of the trunk as a hand. The move also gives the piece a higher value which has been estimated as rather more than that of a Knight. This move appears to have been in the main associated with Buddhist centres, and its disappearance from India may be connected with the overthrow of Buddhism there.

Al-‘Adlī’s statement that in India the Elephants occupied the corner squares is the earliest reference to the uncertainty in the position of this piece, to which I have already referred. From a comparison of the existing information the following points become clear.

(1) In the four-handed game the piece with the Rook’s move stood next the King, and the piece with the Elephant’s move stood in the corner. The piece next the King retained the name of Elephant.

(2) Two authorities (al-‘Adlī and the late Vaidyanātha, see later) transfer this arrangement of the moves to the ordinary chess, so that the piece with the Rook’s move stood next the King, and the piece with the Elephant’s move stood in the corner. In these cases the names were also interchanged, and the Elephant stood on a1, &c.

(3) By the 17th c. generally the piece with the Rook’s move had been definitely fixed on the corner squares, but changes were introduced in the nomenclature. To-day three main divisions may be made. The original nomenclature, Chariot a1, Horse b1, Elephant c1, is the usual nomenclature in Northern India and in the Maldive Islands. The inverted nomenclature, Elephant a1, Horse b1, Chariot e1, is the rule in the extreme South of India among the Tamils, Telugus, and Kannadis. A new nomenclature, Elephant a1, Horse b1, Camel c1, is widely spread. It has been noted as far North as Delhi, and is the rule over the greater part of Central India and the Deccan.

From al-‘Adlī we learn that the Indian rules varied in two particulars from those of Baghdad. One of these variations relates to Stalemate, a situation without parallel in war, which is a consequence of the limited area of the board, and the method of play by alternate moves. The rules regarding Stalemate have varied all through the history of the game, and this old Indian rule by which the victory is given to the player whose King is stalemated, illogical as it is, reappeared in England from 1600 to about 1800. In India the rule has long been replaced by other conventions.¹⁴

The other relates to the ending which, following the usage of early English chess, I call Bare King. In early chess the player who was robbed of all his men lost the game. Occasionally it happened that at the close of a game both sides were reduced to the King and a single piece, while the player whose turn it was to move could take the enemy’s last piece, leaving his own piece en prise. Indian—and Medinese—players counted this a win to the first player on the ground that the opponent was first bared. Persian, and Arabic players generally, reckoned such an ending as drawn.

Chess must have received a great stimulus in India as a result both of the Muhammadan invasion and conquest of North-Western India, begun before 750 and completed by 1100, and of the settlement in South-West India of Persian (Parsi) refugees in search of an asylum where they could still practise their Zoroastrian religion. But while the Parsis appear to have adopted the native Indian method of play, the Muslim conquerors brought with them their own game, and have retained it ever since almost entirely free from Indian influence. It is probably due to this Muslim conquest that the references to the ordinary two-handed chess that I have been able to collect for the 11th to 18th centuries are drawn entirely from Central and Southern India.

It is a very remarkable fact that in these Southern works, chess, the two-handed game of pure combination, is no longer called chaturanga, but has received a new name. The exact form of this name varies from one authority to another, but in every case the word is a compound of the Skr. buddhi, intellect, and all the forms may be translated by the one English name, the Intellectual Game.¹⁵ But it is perhaps even more remarkable that the name chaturanga appears side by side with the new name of chess as the name of a dice-game. It has generally been assumed that this was a two-handed dice-chess, but this does not seem to have been the case. All the evidence goes to show that this dice-chaturanga was a game closely allied to the original ashṭāpada game, if not that game itself.

I imagine that the explanation of this strange transference of name is as follows. The invention of chess did not interfere with the popularity of the ashṭāpada game, and for a long time the games existed side by side, the race-game preserving its old name, and chess being known as chaturanga. Gradually the term ‘ashṭāpada’ passed out of use: we have already seen how commentators of the older literature found it necessary to explain ashṭāpada by chaturangaphalaka, chessboard. At the same time the original meaning of ‘chaturanga’ was forgotten and the word was known in colloquial language merely as the name of a game, the game played on the chaturangaphalaka. The time then came when—possibly only in Southern India, far from the original home of chess—‘chaturanga’ was used indifferently for both games played on the chessboard. With the necessity for discrimination between two games so different in character, the name ‘chaturanga’ became confined to the more popular game, which happened to be the race-game, and a new name had to be found for the less popular game, chess. A name was chosen which admirably described the distinctive feature of chess, its freedom from the sway of chance, and its presentation of a struggle between two minds for the mastery. To-day chess is practically unknown to the natives of Ceylon, but the race-game on the board of 9 × 9 squares is known in Ceylon and Southern India as Saturankam or Chaturanga.¹⁶

This Southern Indian use of chaturanga as the name of a race-game provides a satisfactory explanation of certain statements by commentators which have hitherto puzzled chess-writers. Thus Govardhana (12th c.) in his Saptasatī mentions a poor woman who lives and dies, tormented by the fire of separation, and revives again at a kind look from the eye of the villain (lit. player, but the word had obtained the derived sense of villain from the unfair play that the gambler so often employed) like a sāri. The commentator Ananta (1702 without era, therefore either 1646 or 1780) adds, ‘i.e. like a chaturanga-man (chaturaṅgagūṭikā, lit. chess-horse), which, as often as it dies, i.e. is placed out of the game, is always again restored by the fall of the dice.’ Similarly, the undated commentator to Dhanapāla’s Rishabhapaṅchāsikā (c. 970 A.D.) explains the obscure passage—‘The living beings become like sāri on the board (phalaka) of life, although torn from the senses (i.e. set in motion by the dice) if they espy you (the point of the board) not sharing in imprisonment, murder and death’—as referring to chaturanga. For Dr. Klapp’s consequent mistake, see ZDMG., xxxiii. 465, and Qst., 5. The chaturanga of both these scholiasts is, I feel certain, the race-game, not chess.¹⁷

The same game is obviously intended in the passage quoted by Weber¹⁸ from a MS. of 1475 Samvat (= 1419 A.D.) of the Siṅhāsanaxatriṅṣika, in which a gambler discourses at length to King Vikramāditya on the different games that he knows and their special excellencies, among them being chaturaṃga.

Chess and this race-game chaturanga appear in sharp contrast in the Pañchadandachattraprabandha, a Jaina version of the tales of King Vikramāditya,¹⁹ which contains many Persian words and is not older than the 15th c. In the story the King is set the task of defeating the daughter of a wise woman thrice at play. The King offers her the choice of games, and like Yvorin’s daughter in Huon of Bordeaux, she prefers not to risk her reputation upon the chances of the dice.

The king said: ‘What game will you play?’ She answered, ‘What are the other games worth, rāmdhika, nāla, chashi, lahalyā, chaturaṃga-ṣāri, paṣika, &c.? We will play the intellectual game (buddhidyuta).’ ‘As you wish’, said the king. The king ordered a board (phalaka) to be brought; the game was arranged on both sides: Prince (nṛipa), Counsellor (mantri), Elephants (hasty), Horse (aṣva), Infantry (padāty), and Forerunner (agresara). They began step by step to play the moves (?), The king decided naturally upon an involved game, and he began to play with the help of his invisible āgnika.²⁰

The list of the pieces leaves no doubt as to the identity of buddhidyuta with chess. All the original members of the chaturanga are here except the Chariot, whose place is taken by the Forerunner (agresara). Weber (op. cit.) and Gildemeister (Schaakwerld, 1875, 330) see in the use of this term one of the Persicisms so frequent in the work, and recall the occasional use of the Per. mubariz, champion, as an epithet of the Rook in the Shāhnāma. But there is no evidence that the Persians ever gave the piece any name except Rukh, and this explanation has nothing to recommend it. I think we must regard it as entirely Indian. There has always been a greater variety in the names of the pieces in Indian chess than in the game elsewhere.

We have a very important section on chess at the end of the fifth book (the Nitimayūkha) of Bhaṭṭa Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s great encyclopaedia of ritual, law, and politics, the Bhagavantabhāskara. This work was written about 1600 or 1700 at the command of Bhagavantadeva, son of Jayasinha. The fifth book treats of monarchs, their anointing and consecrating, the whole course of the royal method of life, and the instruments by which the king governs. One of these is the army (bala), and in this connexion Nīlakaṇṭ·ha permits himself a digression in which he speaks of the game which depends not on mere material force but on mental powers.²¹

1. After the discussion of the foregoing subject, viz. the deportment of kings, which is most important for princes, Nīlakaṇṭ·ha, the son of Ṣaṃkara, describes the intellectual game (krīḍā buddhibalāṣritā).

2. We draw eastwards 9 lines and also northwards 9 similar lines upon a piece of cloth, or on a board or on the ground. Thus we obtain the board of 64 squares (catuḥshashṭipadā).

3. We mark the corner squares with geese-feet, also the two middle squares in the same lines, also in the centre we mark 4 squares, and we arrange the warring forces of the two armies on the board.

4. On the two centre squares of the last 8 squares stand the King (rājā) and Counsellor (mantrī), by them the Camels (ushṭra), then the two Horses (vāha), then the two Elephants (dantī). In the next row are placed the 8 Pawns (patti). The host on the other side is arranged similarly, and both are ready for battle.

5. The King moves straight and aslant to 8 squares; the Counsellor aslant only; the Camel (karabha) moves similarly but it passes over a square in the middle like a chain; the Horse (vājī) passes over a square different from the square lying in the straight line into 8 aslant squares. The Elephant (kuñjarā) moves straight out to all squares in its file. The Pawn goes straight forwards.

6. It takes always moving obliquely. When it arrives at the last square, it becomes a Counsellor when it is returned thence to the square it occupied previously. If it arrive at the end on a goose-foot it becomes a Counsellor at once, and not only after the return to the former square. Thus the rule is correctly taught according to the regulation.

6*. Dividing itself by non-repetition, and variety, the game is doubly desired. There is a division for the square, and what is placed upon it, and through this the first is doubly desired. (Text corrupt, and meaning doubtful.)

7. Hereupon the two Pawns (padati) which stand before the two Counsellors (sachivā), and along after them the two Counsellors themselves are to be moved two squares distant. Also another piece which goes one square distant is advanced at the same time by others.

8. A piece standing in the way does not hinder the Horse (haya) and Camel (ushṭra) from going and coming. The Horse and the rest hinder the Elephant (gaja) if they stand before it.

9. The two Pawns (patti) which are placed next the back corners of the Counsellor are firm, so also are the two which go in the chain behind the Camel.

10. This army placed in double array which accomplishes the slaughter of the enemy according to the usual arrangement is called durokhaṣa.

11. If the Elephant (dvipa) is placed in the centre opposite to the opposing King after the removal of his own, it is called kātīṣa.

12. No piece should be placed without protection, and it is desirable to protect by a weaker piece. It is not proper to protect another piece rather than the King. The slaying of the King is yet considered proper.

13. Imprisonment is counted as a defeat of the King. If the King is left entirely alone it is reckoned a half-victory, if he is checked 64 times in succession he is also held to be defeated.

14. When a King is imprisoned without standing in check, and no other of his pieces can move, he may slay the piece of the enemy in his vicinity which imprisons him.

15. If a piece remains over in the army of the imprisoned King, the player of it counts up the counter-marks (?); then he adds 2 for himself and doubles the sum. (Meaning not clear.)

16. When he has finished, he numbers the marks, if there are 64 against him, he loses. If he has as many he is equally defeated, if he has more the result is reversed.

Immediately following this text are three Knight’s tours, the solutions of which are concealed by syllables written on the chessboard, which, when read in the correct order of the tour, yield a connected text. These tours are not only re-entrant, but also to a certain extent symmetrical, and the verses are all based on the same tour, starting from different squares.²² The text begins:—

Draw a diagram of 64 squares, write the syllables siṃ na hi beginning in the S.W. (top right-hand) corner, and also in the N.E. (bottom left-hand) corner. Afterwards move the Horse by reading these syllables, ṣri siṃ, hana, &c.

The solution to the first diagram, ascribed to a king of Sinhaladvīpa (Ceylon), is—

There was a rich host of wise men under king Ṣrī Siṇhaṇa. They knew how to move the Horse into every square, a move at a time.

The second diagram is ascribed to Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s father, Ṣamkara.

Ṣamkara moved the Horse from his square by 63 leaps in the incomparable palace of Prince Rāmeṣa surnamed Nārāyaṇa.

The third diagram is solved by a poem, which concludes:—

Thus again Nīlakaṇṭ·ha moved his Horse from here.

It is accordingly Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s own.

Knight’s Tour (Nīlakaṇṭ·ha).

It has generally been assumed that Nīlakaṇṭ·ha describes a game that has been largely influenced by Persian usages. This view depends mainly upon Weber’s clever conjecture that the two technical terms durokhaṣa and kāilṣa were Sanskrit transliterations of Persian terms—du-roka-shāh (two Hooks-King, i.e. the game in which these pieces have their usual positions) and kāt-i-shāh (the migration of the King, i.e. the game of transposed King and Rook). This, however, is entirely a matter of nomenclature, and I can detect no other evidence of Persian influence. The method of play is unlike that of the Persian Shaṭranj, and the rules are throughout essentially Indian. We may account for the two Persian technicalities by ascribing their introduction to Parsi players.

Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s account of chess is on the whole clear and intelligible; the few obscurities only concern minor points, such as the method of calculating the result in the case of stalemate. The instructions for describing the chessboard are very interesting; the scratching of the diagram on the ground is contemplated, and the marked squares are carefully defined. Apparently the arrangement of the chessmen is the normal one, and the two Kings are placed upon the same file (see § 11). The want of fixity in the names of the pieces is typically Indian. The name of each piece is constant, but four different names are used for the Elephant, three for the Horse, and two each for the Camel, Counsellor, and Pawn. I infer from this that Nīlakaṇṭ·ha was accustomed to play with carved pieces which reproduced the actual figures of men and animals. The two players (7) commence the game by each making a double move: Pd4 and Qd3, Pd5 and Qd6. Some players moved a third man on this move, apparently a second Pawn. The initial double step (9) is only allowed to the Pawns on the a, d, and h files; the other Pawns can move only one square at a time. Promotion (6) is connected with the marked squares; the Pawn ‘queens’ at once on the marked squares a8, d8, e8, h8; but elsewhere it has to make some further move—apparently to the square it had occupied the previous move, but the text is not sufficiently explicit. Checkmate and Perpetual check are wins, Bare King a half win. A King in a position of stalemate is allowed to remove the piece which confines him: the final result of this position apparently varies with circumstances.

Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s rules are important as the earliest statement of the rules of the native chess of Southern India. In some points his rules approximate to rules observed in Malay chess; in others they show a remarkable similarity with the rules associated with the German village of Ströbeck. In common with existing forms of Indian chess (specially the form I call Parsi chess) are the restrictions on the double step of the Pawn, and the abnormal method of playing the first move. In contrast are the rules of Pawn promotion.

Slightly later than Nīlakaṇṭ·ha is a work by Vaidyanātha Pāyaguṇḍa, who lived in the first half of the 18th century or later. This work has for title Chaturangavinoda, The Game of Chess, but only the last chapter of 44 slokas treats of the game. The text of the unique MS.²³ is hopelessly corrupt, and Weber could only give a few extracts. It deals with the ordinary two-handed game without dice. Beyond this we only know—

The Chariots (ratha, syandana) occupy the corners, next to them are the Horses (turaja). then the Elephants (dvīpa, nāgendra, nāga), and in the centre are the King (rājā, nripa) and his Counsellor (mantri). The 8 Foot-soldiers (padāti) stand in front….

The Chariot leaps diagonally into the third field….

The Horse goes (?) to the corners of a square standing on 4 squares….

The Elephant goes in the 4 streets….

The Counsellor goes one or two or all squares diagonally….

The King goes to all the squares round about….

The Pawn goes one field forwards, and takes to both sides….

The special points about this description are: (1) the name chaturanga is still used for the ordinary two-handed chess, (2) the original names of the pieces remain, (3) the Chariot and Elephant have interchanged moves, precisely as al-Bērūnī describes in the case of the four-handed game, and (4) the Counsellor’s move is approximating to the modern move of the Queen: it is apparently identical with our Bishop’s move.

I have now come to modern days, when Europeans were again coming into direct contact with India. We possess no satisfactory accounts of Indian chess in the descriptions of the early voyages to the East. A few sets of native chess were brought home, and Hyde obtained some from Sheldon and describes them in his Mandragorias.²⁴ Forbes (162–3 and 249–51) quotes from two English volumes of memoirs of the close of the 18th cent. some references to games between Europeans and natives, but the information is too unscientific to be of much value.