Who Invented Chess?

History of Chess

Chaturanga is an ancient Indian game which is presumed to be the common ancestor of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi. Chaturanga has been played since the 6th century or before, hence Chaturanga is most commonly thought to be the oldest version of chess. Chaturanga is the direct ancestor of Shatranj, which was the form that brought chess to medieval Europe.

In Sanskrit, “Chatur-anga-bala” literally means “an army comprising (4 parts , viz.) elephants, chariots, cavalry, and infantry”. The game too shows fourfold division of the ancient Indian military. Other than the king and his counsellor or general in the center, the army consisted of the following chess pieces:

* Infantry represented by a line of advancing pawns.
* Thundering war elephants close to the middle of the army. Later, this somewhat weak piece was thought not to be a suitable representation of the power of the real elephant in war in India. This initiated a change of move and of name, and often in India nowadays the rook is called the elephant and the bishop is called the camel.
* Mounted cavalry represented by the horse with a move that allowed flanking.
* Chariots on the wings which move quickly but linearly and became the rook in Europe, but a ship as chess crossed north into Russia.

Chaturanga was played on an 8×8 uncheckered board. The board had some special markings, the meaning of which is not known today. These markers were not related to chaturanga, but were drawn on the board only because of tradition. The great chess historian Murray has speculated that the board was also used for some old race-type dice game, perhaps similar to Chowka bhara, in which these markers had a meaning.