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Table of Contents

The modern games.—Three main varieties of chess played.—Summary of the nomenclatures.—The crosswise arrangement of the Kings.—Hindustani chess.—Parsi chess.—Standard of play.—Specimen games.—Native chessmen.—The problem.

Chess is played at the present time over the whole of India and the adjacent islands. There is, however, no absolute uniformity of rule as in Europe, and native writers tell of three main types of play as existing in the peninsula, to which they give the names of the Hindustani, the Parsi, and the Rūmī chess. Of these the first two appear to be the modern descendants of the original Indian chess, while the third may be traced back to the Muslim game which has been introduced by the Muslim conquerors of Northern India. The rules of this Rūmī chess have been fixed for the last hundred years, and the game seems able to resist the influence of the European moves and rules of play. Neither the Hindustani (North Indian) nor the Parsi (South Indian) game exhibits the same fixity of rule; it is not always easy to classify the type of game described by European observers; both games are very susceptible to the influence of the European chess, and there are also everywhere local peculiarities of rule. The characteristic feature of both games consists in the rules of Pawn promotion. Native observers say that these games are gradually losing ground, and there can be little doubt that in the long run both forms will be replaced by the European chess.

Although it is convenient to collect together in the present chapter the nomenclature of all types of Indian chess, I only propose to deal here with the Hindustani and Parsi games—those which I regard as the modern representatives of the older Indian chess. The Rūmī game will be described later in Ch. XVII, with the other modern forms of the Muslim chess with which it is intimately connected.

Naturally in a land that contains so many different languages as India, the names of the chessmen vary from place to place with language or dialect. The game itself is called shiṭranj (shaṭranj) in the Muhammadan regions: in the Deccan and Southern India the name, as already stated, is a compound of the word buddhi, intellect. The information that I have been able to collect as to the names of the chessmen is exhibited in the following table. For purposes of comparison I include the earlier nomenclature from the passages quoted in the two preceding chapters.

The initial arrangement of the men in the Hindustani and Parsi games is exhibited in the accompanying figure. The only difference between this arrangement and the European one consists in the relative positions of the Kings and Ministers (Counsellors, Viziers—our Queens). In the European game both Kings stand on the same file and the white Queen stands on her King’s left and the black Queen on her King’s right. In the Indian games each Minister stands on the King’s left, and as a result each Minister faces his opponent’s King.¹⁶ This method of arranging the pieces, conveniently termed crosswise, is now the rule in all games of chess upon the board of 64 squares that are played in Southern Asia, with the exceptions of Burmese and Rūmī chess. In Turkish chess, Egyptian chess, and these Indian games the Minister stands on the King’s left: in Persian chess and the Malay games, on the King’s right. This diversity of plan makes impossible the explanation favoured sometimes that the crosswise arrangement had its origin in considerations of court etiquette which forbad the Minister to stand on a particular side of his sovereign. The most probable explanation is that it is a result of the unchequered nature of the Oriental chessboard, which prevented the growth of conventions which could be defined by reference to the colour of particular squares, as is the case in modern European chess. In their fullest form granting the right of beginning the game to the player of a particular colour, these conventions are quite recent in origin, and are merely matters of convenience to secure uniformity and even conditions of play; they are not essential to chess, and have no real importance for the theory of the game. If the need were felt for similar conventions for the arrangement of the chessmen upon an unchequered board, it is obvious that the arrangement can only be defined in terms of the relative positions of King and Minister, and the crosswise arrangement gives no real or imagined advantage to either side. But the change seems to have been made without remark, and, so far as the evidence goes, it appears to be of quite recent introduction. It was not the rule in Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s account of the Indian chess, and the Persian MS. Y,¹⁷ copied in Delhi in 1612, still shows the European opposite arrangement. The earliest reference that I know to the crosswise arrangement in any country is contained in the passage from Hamilton’s Egyptiaca (London, 1809) which is quoted later (p. 357).

The Modern Indian Chess. C = Camel; E = Elephant.

In Hindustani chess the ordinary moves of the pieces are identical with those of the European pieces occupying the equivalent initial positions. The Rook (elephant, chariot, boat) moves as our Rook, the Horse as our Knight, the Elephant (camel) as our Bishop, and the Vizier (minister) as our Queen. The King (raja, padshah) moves to any of the squares contiguous to the one he is occupying, and in addition he is permitted once in the game, whether he has already moved or not, to leap as a Knight, but this privilege is lost if he be checked before he has availed himself of it. The Pawns move straight forward one square at a time only, and capture in the same way that is the rule in the European game. Singha in his account (which in many ways describes a game that seems more like the Parsi chess) adds the information that the King cannot capture on his leap, nor exercise it to cross a square which is commanded by a hostile piece.

A Pawn which arrives at the 8th row receives promotion to the rank of the master-piece of the file, i.e. a Pawn reaching a8 (a1) or h8 (h1) becomes a Rook, reaching b8 (b1) or g8 (g1) a Horse (Kt), reaching c8 (c1) or f8 (f1) an Elephant (B), and reaching d8 (d1) or e8 (e1) a Vizier (Q). The possibilities of promotion are further complicated by the rule that no Pawn may be promoted until the player has lost a piece of the rank that the Pawn must adopt on reaching the eighth row. Before a Pawn can be promoted to an Elephant (B), that particular Elephant which could reach the ‘queening’ square must have been lost. A player may not have on the board more pieces of any kind than he had at the commencement of the game. Accordingly, we have a further rule that no Pawn on the 7th row can be advanced to the 8th, until its immediate promotion is legally possible. Thus a player with an advanced Pawn on d7 cannot play Pd8 so long as he has a Vizier on the board: if he wishes to ‘queen’ this Pawn, he must first sacrifice the existing Vizier. During this pause the advanced Pawn enjoys no immunity from capture: it can be taken like any other piece.¹⁸

The game is played from the commencement by alternate moves, precisely as is the case in the European game.¹⁹

Three conclusions of a game are recognized—

checkmate, which is identical with the European checkmate: the Urdu term is māt.

burd, or half-win, when a player succeeds in capturing all his opponent’s superior pieces, whether he leave him any Pawns or not.²⁰

bāzī qā’īm, or draw, when both players are left with a single piece. Singha terms this termination chaturbolla.

Stalemate is not recognized, and a player is not permitted to make a move which stalemates his opponent.²¹ Perpetual check is recognized as a drawn game, but the game must not be abandoned, so says Durgāprasāda, until check has been given 70 times in succession!

The following specimen of Hindustani chess is taken from the Benares work of Syamakiṣora. The Kings are to be placed upon e1 and d8:

The Parsi chess differs considerably from the game that I have just described. The moves of the superior pieces are the same, except that the King is allowed to make his single leap as a Knight out of check, and can even capture a hostile piece by it.²³ But the Pawns’ moves are quite different. Each of the four Pawns which stand in front of the King, Vizier, and Rooks, i.e. on the a, d, e, and h files, is allowed the full European initial move, so long as the master-piece of the file, which stands behind the Pawn it is desired to play, has not been moved. The other four Pawns, as in the Hindustani game, can only move one square at a time.²⁴

There is also some variation with respect to Pawn-promotion. It is not clear from my authorities that the restriction to promotion of a BP, which I have recorded in the case of the Hindustani game, obtains in the Parsi game. On the other hand, the Pawn which is promoted on the Knights’ files is specially privileged. When the player moves the Pawn from the 7th sq. to the 8th, and promotes it to the rank of Horse (Kt), he can, if he choose, on the same move, make a further Knight’s move with the newly promoted piece.²⁵ There are also some local peculiarities with regard to the Pawn promoted on its King’s file. According to one European writer (CPM., 1866, 35), the Deccan player was at liberty in this case to select the rank of any piece that he had already lost for the promotion-value of this Pawn. Another observer (CPC., 1843, 150) extends this privilege to a Pawn queening on the Vizier’s file also. Tiruveṇgaḍāchārya and Gillay, both native authorities, give the rule as I give it for Hindustani chess.

At the commencement of the game, the player who has the move begins by playing a certain number of moves in succession. In so doing he is not allowed to cross into the opponent’s half of the board. The native chessbooks generally speak of 4 or 8 moves being played in this way,²⁶ but they give examples of arrangements which they recommend for use which require from 4 to 9 moves. Mr. Gillay told me that 4 moves were usually played in Northern, and 3 in Southern India, ‘as the player wishes to bring the King in a good position’. Lala Raja Babu says that in Parsi chess the players commence by playing 4 simultaneous moves. When the first player has made the number of moves that had been agreed upon, or which suited his plans, the second player proceeds to make an equal number of moves with the same restriction that he must keep to his own half of the board. At the conclusion of this rearrangement of the forces the game continues by alternate moves, precisely as in European chess. The earliest trace of this custom is to be seen in the chess passage which I have quoted from Nīlakaṇṭ·ha. The native player Tiruveṇgaḍāchārya Shastrī defends the custom in his Essays on Chess (xiv), as allowing ‘of a general disposition and all the pieces being brought out before any exchange takes place, without giving to either player any decided advantage’, a consummation which he considered would be more likely than the European method of play ‘to bring forward the learner’, and ‘to produce the greatest number of good players’: an opinion which has certainly not been borne out in the experience of the 19th c.

The following combinations of opening moves are given in the native chess-books which I have used. The order of the moves is naturally immaterial. The Kings stand on e1 and d8.

A. In four moves. I.—Pd4, Pe4, Pe3, Pf3. II.—Pe4, Pd3, Pf3, Be3. III.—Pe4, Pd4, Kte3, Ktf3. IV.—Pe4, Pd4, Kte3, Be3. V.—Pd3, Bf4, Pe3, Be2. VI.—Pe4, Pd4, Be3, Bd3. VII.—Pd4, Ph4, Bf4, Ktf3. VIII.—Pd4, Pc3, Pg3, Ktd2. IX.—Pe4, Pd4, Pc3, Be3. X.—Pe3, Pd3, Pc3, Pf3. XI.—Pb3, Pg3, Bb2, Bg2.

B. In six moves. XII.—Pe4, Pd4, Be3, Bd3, Ktc3, Ktf3. XIII.—Pd3, Pc3, Pb3, Pa3, Ktf3, bKtd2.

C. In seven moves. XIV.—Pe3, Pd3, Pg3, Bg2, Ktf3, Ke2, Re1.

D. In eight moves. XV.—Pe4, Pd4, Be3, Bd3, Pc3, Pf3, Kte2, Ktd2. XVI.—Pd4, Bf4, Ph4, Pa3, Pc3, Pc4, Ktc3, Ktf3. XVII.—Pe4, Pd4, Be3, Bd3, Ktf3, Ktc3, Ke2, Re1. XVIII.—Pe4, Pd4, Be3, Be2, Ktc3, Ktf3, Ph3, Kf1.

E. In nine moves. XIX.—Pe4, Pd4, Be3, Bd3, Ktc3, Ktf3, Pg3, Kg2, Re1.

There are different methods of concluding the game. While the ultimate object—the mate of the opponent’s King²⁷—is the same as in European chess, the Parsi and Southern Indian chessplayer is more fastidious than the modern European as to the method by which he gives mate. The European esteems all his pieces alike for the purpose. The Indian thinks differently. In his opinion the highest achievement and the most brilliant conclusion is the mate with a Pawn,²⁸ and he will steer his way past opportunities for brilliant sacrifice and past obvious mates on the move, if he thinks that he can, at the end of a long and wearisome manœuvre, give checkmate with a Pawn.

Stalemate is not recognized. ‘Stalemate is not known in the Hindoostannee game,’ says Tiruveṇgaḍāchārya; ‘if one party get into that position the adversary must make room for him to move. In some part of India he that is put into this predicament has a right to remove from the board any one of the Adversary’s pieces he may choose.’ Perpetual check is also forbidden: the attacking player must vary his procedure.

If a player lose all his superior pieces, whether he has Pawns remaining or not, the game is said to be būrd or būrj and is reckoned as drawn. Tiruveṇgaḍāchārya gives it as a win to which very little credit is attached, and adds that in many parts it is only counted a draw. Mr. Gillay says that it is called panchamobara būrj if the superior force has four pieces besides the King when the game is abandoned as būrj. Another observer in the Deccan (CPM., 1866, 34) says: ‘If at the end of the game, either player is left with only one piece, with or without Pawns, the game is drawn; or, if only Pawns are left, the game is drawn. This rule, however, admits of various modifications. In some cases, if one piece only is left, it becomes endowed with new powers and renders it difficult for the adversary to escape. But this, I assume, is rather a mode of giving odds than a distinct variety of the game.’ Something like this has been recorded of one form of Malay chess.

The following specimens of play with the Parsi rules are taken from the two Marathi chess-books which have been used as authorities for this form of chess. The Kings are to be placed on e1 and d8:

In addition to the ordinary chess, and the games upon larger boards, or with other than the usual pieces, which I shall discuss in a later chapter, there appears to be a variety played in parts of Western India in which the usual arrangement of the men and the ordinary rules are observed with the single exception that no piece can be taken so long as it is supported by some other man.³²

When we compare the rules of these two modern India games with the little information that we possess with reference to the older game of India, or even with the transitional forms described by Nīlakaṇṭ·ha and Vaidyanātha, it becomes clear that contact with European players has already made profound changes in the native chess. Thus, the European modifications in the rules of certain pieces, introduced in Europe just before 1500, have been adopted in Indian chess since Nīlakaṇṭ·ha’s day, and the older moves of Elephant or Camel (our Bishop) and Minister or Vizier have completely disappeared. The existing move of the King in India is based upon the rule current in Europe in the later Middle Ages. The Pawn’s move in Parsi chess exhibits a limitation to the general use of the double step which for long was in existence in German chess. Even the rules of Pawn promotion—to-day the most typical feature in the Indian games—would seem to have their origin in a peculiarity of English chess about 1600. In the older Indian chess, just as in the Muslim chess and the older European chess, the only promotion possible was to the rank of the Vizier (Firzān, Queen). In English chess c. 1600 a player was allowed to promote to the rank of any piece which had been already lost. Indian players have developed this in characteristic fashion, making the tactics of the End-game very different from those in our chess. The same European inspiration can be seen in other aspects of Indian chess of which I have still to speak. All the native text-books which I have seen betray very considerable signs of the use of European books, and must be used with much caution. Most of them teach the European rules as well as the native ones: one book, that of Lala Raja Babu, has incorporated an English work on the End-game³³ making the necessary changes in it to make it applicable to the Hindustani chess.

INDIAN CHESSMEN

Hyde, ii. 123

From the evidence of European chessplayers the general standard of play in India is not high. This is not surprising, since all the conditions that make for the development of great skill are wanting. The science of chess has never been developed, and the literature of the game is still elementary in character. Chess clubs are few in number, and for the most part exist for the practice of the European game. Only a few names have stood out as of importance in the history of chess. I may mention Tiruveṇgaḍāchārya Shastrī of Tirputty near Madras, who made a reputation in Bombay among the small European chess circle, to whom he was familiarly known as the Brahmin. He was the author of a Sanskrit poem,³⁴ which he afterwards translated into English under the title of Essays on Chess, Bombay, 1814, in which he attempted to adapt the native chess to the European and gives the earliest collection of Indian problems of non-Muslim workmanship that we possess. The compromise which he attempted between the two games naturally reduces the value of his work from the historical point of view. Ghulam Kassim, a Madras player, made his mark in the European game. He took part in the correspondence match between Madras and Hyderabad in 1829, and in collaboration with James Cochrane published an Analysis of the Muzio Gambit, Madras, 1829.

Indian chessmen, like those of all countries except China and Japan, may be grouped into two classes. We find sets in which the pieces are actual carvings, reproducing in miniature the animals and men whose names they bear, and other sets in which the pieces have conventional shapes which are easier and cheaper to produce and must therefore have always been the material employed by the ordinary chessplayer. Of the more elaborate type there are many examples in European museums and in private collections. To these al-Maṣ‘ūdī undoubtedly referred in the passage on the uses of ivory which I have already quoted, though I know of no pieces approaching the bulk of which he speaks, unless the so-called Charlemagne King in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, is of Indian workmanship. Indian it undoubtedly is in treatment, but it bears an Arabic inscription on its base which purports to give the carver’s name.³⁵

Bambra-ka-thūl (Brāhmānābād) Chessmen.

INDIAN CHESSMEN, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

From Mr. Platt’s Collection

Hyde (1767, ii. 123) gives some illustrations of a fine set of this character which Sir D. Sheldon had brought back from Bombay, which I reproduce. He says that both Persians (by whom he means Parsis) and Moghuls used men of this type.

More modern pieces of this type are often treated on freer lines. It would seem to have been a favourite device of workers in ivory at the end of the 18th century to make the chessmen symbolize the struggle between the East India Company and the native states. Thus a set in the Gotha Museum has on one side two elephants with palanquins (K and Q), two rhinoceroses (B), two horsemen (Kt), two towers bearing small figures with flags (R), and eight soldiers in European uniform. The other side replaces the rhinoceroses by buffaloes, the horsemen by men on camels, and the infantry by eight native soldiers carrying what appear to be folded umbrellas. The presence of the castle for the Rooks is a plain proof of European influences at work. I reproduce a similar set from Mr. Platt’s collection of chessmen.

Scachi Indici plani Lignei.

Scachi Indici plani Eburnei solidi.

Scachi Indici plani Eburnei cavi.

Indian Chessmen from Surat (Hyde).

The references to chess in the earlier Indian literature seem to me from their want of fixity of nomenclature to suggest that carved pieces of this first type were in the writers’ minds; but at the present time the conventional type of chessman is by far the more usual. The conventional Indian chessmen are very similar to the ordinary Muslim pieces, and it is quite possible that the Indian type has been developed from, or influenced by, the Muslim pattern. The chief difference is to be found in connexion with the Rook. In the Sunnite Muslim sets this is a tall piece with a very distinct type of head; in Indian sets the Rook is now often a low piece with a flat top which at times is almost like the modern European draughtsman. It is thus of a shape very similar to the Siamese and Malayan Rooks. The change in shape would appear to be of recent date, since the Indian conventional chessmen which Hyde obtained from Surat have much taller and bolder heads.

The only ancient chessmen of conventional shape which have been discovered in India were found in 1855 or 1856 by Mr. A. F. Bellasis in the course of some excavations upon the site of a ruined city at Bambra-ka-thūl, 47 miles N.E. of Haidārābād, the present capital of the lower Sind. The city, which had unmistakably been destroyed by an earthquake, was at first identified with the Hindu city Brāhmānābād, which was already in ruins in the time of al-Balādhūrī (D. 279/892–3). It is now recognized to be the Muslim town of Manṣūra, which replaced Brāhmānābād in the latter half of the 8th c. and was still in existence in the time of al-Bērūnī (1030), although there is reason to believe that the earthquake had happened a little before his time.³⁶ The chessmen accordingly belong to the early 11th c., and are Muslim rather than native Indian. They are now in the British Museum along with a long die (2 + 5, 1 + 6), a cubic die (1 + 6, 2 + 5, 3 + 4), the fragments of a small box or coffer which was formerly assumed to be the fragments of an inlaid chequered chessboard, and a few other objects obtained at the same time. The chessmen are of ivory, black and white, but are now in a very decayed state, and the ivory has degenerated into a condition not unlike that of lime or chalk. There are now 37 pieces or fragments of pieces. None can be identified with any approach to certainty. Since the various fragments either end in pegs or contain holes of the same size as the pegs, I imagine that they were carved in sections and pieced together; this seems more likely than the view that the men were pegged for use on a board with holes.

From Lala Kaja Babu’s work.

From Vinayaka Rajarama Tope’s work.

Some Modern Indian Chessmen.

The chessmen which Hyde possessed were coloured red and green, and these are still the usual colours at the present day; less frequently we meet with sets with red and black, or with white and black chessmen.

These conventional sets must not be confused with the curious elaborate sets carved in India for the European market, in which the English chessmen are treated on Indian lines. The characteristic feature of these curios is the development of the Bishop’s mitre, though the representation of the Rook as a Castle betrays the foreign source of inspiration. Often beautiful works of art and wonderful examples of the native skill in carving, these sets have but little importance for the history of the game: too elaborate for ordinary play, they are the result of the requirements of the European collector of curios.

MODERN INDIAN CHESSMEN

Platt Collection

The study of chess endings and problems (Urdū naqsh) would seem to have been a late development in non-Muhammadan India. It is somewhat singular that whereas the Muslim players had achieved much success in this branch of chess before the end of the 10th c., it was not until after Hindu players had come into contact with the European game that we find any trace of Hindu problems. The Indian Muslim players were familiar with the traditional Muslim material, and we possess Persian problem MSS. which were copied in India. I am not sure that we possess any problems by players of the Hindustani game which are uncoloured by European ideas. The only native problems which are composed on other lines belong to the Parsi chess. The earliest of these are contained in the already mentioned work of Tiruveṇgaḍāchārya Shastrī (1814). Of the 96 positions in his Essays on Chess, 32 are composed ‘agreeably to the European mode of Play’, and are indeed in part drawn from European works. The remaining 64 are said to be composed under the Indian rules.³⁷ Many of these are repeated in Mangesa’s collection of 81 Pawn mates. Another Marathi work (Vinayaka) gives a still larger collection, classified under the heads: Mates with a piece, Pawn mates, Self mates, Būrj positions, Draws by perpetual check or stalemate, Mates under European rules. Most of the other native chess-books I have seen give collections of problems which have been taken from European books and newspapers.

An examination of the accessible problems shows that the Pawn mate is held in the highest esteem. Excepting that the position must be possible in that it conforms to the rules of the game in the pieces employed, and in the necessity of leaving the losing player sufficient force to avoid the ending būrj, there seem to be no canons of taste governing the composition of the native problem. The recognition of the higher standard of the modern European problem has probably arrested the development of the native art, which came into existence too late to strive successfully against its Western rival. A selection of Indian problems is given in the appendix to this chapter.