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The earliest accounts of Burmese chess are contained in Symes’s Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava (in 1795), London, 1800, 466–7, and in Captain Hiram Cox’s paper On the Burmha Game of Chess compared with the Indian, Chinese, and Persian Games of the same Denomination, which was written in 1799 and was published, after the author’s death, in Asiatic Researches, Calcutta, 1801, vii. 488–511. Captain Cox had obtained his knowledge of Burmese chess during his residence at the court of Amarapura. Of more recent date are the accounts of Dr. Adolf Bastian (Leipziger Illustr. Zeit., July 4, 1863) and of Sir J. G. Scott, who devotes a whole chapter of his work on Burma to Burmese chess.² The following account is based upon information given me by Mr. E. Colston, I.C.S., who, a chess-player himself in England, had learnt and played the native game in Burma. The accuracy of the details has been established by reference to native players.

The Burmese name for their chess is sittuyin, pronounced in Arakanese sitturin.³ The game is also called colloquially sitbuyin (Arakanese, sitburin). In both these forms sit is the Burmese word for army, and is probably the direct Burmese descendant of the Skr. chaturanga.⁴ Sittuyin may be translated ‘representation of the army’. Sitbuyin is identical in form with the Burmese military term for ‘generalissimo’ ‘commander-in-chief’, but Mr. Colston and the Burmans whom I have consulted do not recognize any connexion between the two words.

The Burmese chessboard (sittuyin-kon; kya-kwet = a square of the chessboard or any similar board) is unchequered.⁵ It is usually very large, and is raised above the ground for the convenience of the players who, following the ordinary Burmese custom, squat upon the ground. The chess-table, for so it becomes, is supplied with a drawer to hold the chessmen when not in use, and often a supply of lime, areea nuts, and betel ready for the player to chew during play. Like the Indian and Malay boards, the surface exhibits other marks than the lines which divide the squares from each other. These marks vary on different boards, and may even be entirely absent, but the player must always supply them mentally. They govern the whole question of Pawn-promotion.

These markings are something like those recorded in the Malay boards from the mainland, where again, though in a different way, they are associated with Pawn-promotion. On the other hand, they widely differ from the markings of the Indian boards. The most persistent marks on the Indian board are connected with the central squares on opposite edges and the four squares in the middle of the board. The marks on the Burmese board deal rather with the board as a whole than with particular squares on it. I am at a loss to explain them, for the anomalous rules of Pawn-promotion must, I think, be due to the marks, and not the marks to the rules: indeed, I see no other way of accounting for the appearance of the rules than to suppose that they were suggested by the markings. None of my Burman informants could give any explanation of them. They thought that the markings were only added ‘for ornament’.

The ordinary Burmese Board (Bassein, &c.).

From a, Board belonging to Mr. A. J. Neilson, Glasgow.

Falkener.

Shway Yoe.

Capt. Cox.

The markings on Burmese Chessboards, and Burmese arrangements of the Chessmen.

Burmese chessmen are always actual figures, though the carving of them is very rude and tends to become conventional. They are nearly always made of wood and stained red and black.⁶ The red Pawns are carved as men, the black as monkeys, in reference to the battle in the Rāmāyana between Rāma and the monkeys. Ivory sets are very rare; none of the Burmans whom I consulted had ever seen any ivory sets in use. There are ivory sets, however, at South Kensington and in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford; of the latter set I give a picture. The ivory sets are coloured white and red.

BURMESE CHESSMEN

Pitt-Rivers Collection, Oxford

The names and powers of the Burmese chessmen are given in the following table:

All the major pieces capture as they move.⁸ The title sit-kè was formerly employed for civil as well as military officers of subordinate rank. Yattah (in Arakanese ratta) is simply the Skr. rat·ha.

At the commencement of the game the sixteen Nès or Pawns are placed upon the board in the position shown in the accompanying diagram. This arrangement of the Nès is never varied. The game now commences with alternate moves, and each player in turn places one of his major pieces on the board on any vacant square in his own half of the board. As a rule the players begin by placing their Mín-guis (K) on g2 and b7; their Myins (Kts) are placed so as to support one another, one Sin (B) is placed next the Mín-gyi (K), and the Yattahs (R) are placed on files which are comparatively empty of pieces in order that they may break through as soon as possible. If a player think it expedient to place one of his major pieces upon a square already occupied by one of his Nès (P), he is at liberty to do so and to place the Nè elsewhere behind the row of Nès. In the position given by Bastian, Black has evidently done this, placing his Sit-kè on h4 and the Nè from h4 on e3.

Initial arrangement of the Nès (Pawns).

When all the pieces are disposed on the board, the players are still at liberty in the following moves to continue to rearrange their pieces by abnormal moves, removing one piece in each turn of play. With the advance of the first Nè (P), this liberty ceases, and the game continues by alternate legal moves of the chessmen.

Most Burmans have a favourite disposition for their pieces, though obviously a good deal ought to depend upon the arrangement adopted by the opponent. Previous observers have recorded the favourite arrangements of their native informants. Earlier chess writers (cf. Forbes, 261) have associated these varying arrangements with the Arabic ta‘bīyāt, or the Indian custom of opening the game with a number of simultaneous moves. It is obvious from Mr. Colston’s full description of the whole manœuvre that we have something utterly different here. I imagine that the Burmese initial play has developed out of an older arrangement of the board of which the Siamese arrangement is perhaps a survival. Both Symes and Cox would seem to point to an earlier condition of things. According to the former, each player arranges his men on three lines by which eight squares are left unoccupied. This would exactly fit the Siamese arrangement as given below. A young Burman from Moulmein drew the Siamese arrangement and gave the Siamese rules when I asked him to describe the chess that he played at home.⁹ The arrangement which Cox gave shows an intermediate position of the Pawns between the Siamese and the modern Burmese.

Burmese arrangement of the Chessmen. From Bastian.

Any Nè (P) that is played to a marked square can be promoted to the rank of Sit-kè (Q), provided that the player has no other Sit-kè on the board at the moment. In promoting the Nè the player is at liberty to place the Sit-kè (which replaces the Nè) upon the square occupied by the promoted Nè, or upon any adjacent square which is not commanded by an opponent’s piece. If a player whose turn it is to play has a Nè standing on a marked square, and no Sit-kè on the board, he can, if he likes, simply promote the Nè without moving at all. In certain positions, when a player cannot make a move without disadvantage, this may become a valuable privilege. Obviously the Nès most favourably situated for promotion are those on the player’s right wing. It is in consequence of this, and the difficulty of promoting a Pawn on the other wing, that Cox and Shway Yoe would limit promotion to the Pawns on the right wing, which alone could advance to the sinister diagonal (a1 to h8) on which promotion is most easily secured.¹⁰

The most useful piece with which to give mate is the Sin (B); Burmese players accordingly do not like to exchange their Sins. For ‘check’ they say kwě (Cox, kwai), and for check-rook, a move forking King and Rook, kwadot. There is no term for mate; the winner generally says Neinbe, ‘I have won’; the loser, Shonbe, ‘I have lost’.

Stalemate is not known in Burmese chess; a player is not allowed to place his opponent in a stalemate position. He must give the Mín-gyi room to play.

At the conclusion of a game it is usual for the winner to give the loser a dab on the cheek with the soft powdered lime that Burmans always carry with them in order to prepare the betel for chewing. In this way the score of a succession of games at a sitting may be kept. Some players give a dab for every check in the game. Chess is mainly played by elderly Burmans, and, according to Mr. Colston, is of all Burmese games the freest from betting. Shway Yoe, on the other hand, says that there is always heavy betting on the games, and that during matches between the more famous players the excitement becomes so intense that it is not uncommon for the spectators (who advise the players freely) to come to actual blows.¹¹

The Burmans have paid no attention to the composition or study of chess problems.