Chaturanga

This article is about the two-player ancient game chaturanga. For the four-player version, played with dice, see chaturaji. For other uses, see Chaturanga (disambiguation).

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Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board, sometimes with special marks, on which chaturanga was played

Chaturanga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग; caturaṅga), catur, is an ancient Indian game which is the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, makruk, xiangqi and janggi.

Chaturanga developed in Gupta Empire, India around the 6th century AD. In the 7th century, it was adopted as shatranj in Sassanid Persia, which in turn was the form that brought chess to late-medieval Europe.

The exact rules of chaturanga are not known. Chess historians suppose that the game had similar rules to those of its successor shatranj. In particular, there is uncertainty as to the moves of the Gaja (elephant), the precursor of the bishop in modern chess.

History

Sanskrit caturaṅga is a bahuvrihi compound, meaning "having four limbs or parts" and in epic poetry often means "army". The name itself comes from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata, referring to four divisions of an army, viz. elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry.

Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8x8 Ashtāpada

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

An early reference to an ancient Indian board game is sometimes attributed to Subandhu in his Vasavadatta (c. AD 450):

The time of the rains played its game with frogs for pieces [nayadyutair] yellow and green in color, as if mottled by lac, leapt up on the black field squares.

The colors are not those of the two camps, but mean that the frogs have a two-tone dress, yellow and green.

Banabhatta's Harsha Charitha (c. AD 625) contains the earliest reference to the name chaturanga:

Under this monarch, only the bees quarreled to collect the dew; the only feet cut off were those of measurements, and only from Ashtâpada one could learn how to draw up a chaturanga, there was no cutting-off of the four limbs of condemned criminals...

While there is little doubt that Ashtâpada is the gameboard of 8×8 squares, the double meaning of chaturanga, as the four folded army, may be controversial. There is a probability that the ancestor of chess was mentioned there.

The game was first introduced to the West in Thomas Hyde's De ludis orientalibus libri duo, published in 1694. Subsequently, translations of Sanskrit accounts of the game were published by Sir William Jones.

Pieces and their moves

Chaturanga pieces
Raja (king)
Mantri or Senapati (Counselor or General; early form of queen)
Ratha (Chariot; rook)
Gaja (Elephant; early form of bishop)
Asva (Horse; knight)
Padàti or Bhata (Foot-soldier; pawn)

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Chaturanga starting position. The Ràjas do not face each other; the white Ràja starts on e1 and the black Ràja on d8.

• Raja (King) – Moves like the king in chess.
• Mantri (Minister); also known as Senapati (General) – Moves one square diagonally, like the Fers in shatranj.
• Ratha (Chariot); also spelled Śakata – Moves like the rook in chess.
• Gaja (Elephant) – Three different moves are described in ancient literature:
  1. Two squares in any diagonal direction, jumping over one square, as the Alfil in shatranj.
     • The same move is used for the Boat in a four-handed version of chaturangam, chaturaji.
     • The Elephant in xiangqi (Chinese chess) has the same move, but without jumping. (The name Elephant is used for a fairy chess piece with this move: a (2, 2) leaper, but one that cannot jump over an intervening piece.)
  2. One square forward or one square in any diagonal direction.
     • This is the same move as the silver general in shogi.
     • In makruk (Thai chess) and sittuyin (Burmese chess) the elephant moves in the same way.
     • This move was described c. 1030 by Biruni in his India book.
  3. Two squares in any orthogonal direction, jumping over one square. (In modern chess, the rook moves orthogonally.)
     • A piece with such a move is called a Dabbābah in some chess variants. This move was described by the Arabic chess master al-Adli c. 840 in his (partly lost) chess work. (The Arabic word dabbābah in former times meant a covered siege engine for attacking walled fortifications, and nowadays means "army tank".)
       • The German historian Johannes Kohtz (1843–1918) suggests, rather, that this was the earliest move of the Ratha.[1]
• Ashva (Horse); also spelled Ashwa, Asva – Moves like the knight in chess.
• Padàti/Bhata (Foot-soldier); also spelled Pedati, Bhata; also known as Sainik (Warrior) – Moves like the pawn in chess.

Other rules

Al-Adli also mentions two further differences:

• Stalemate was a win for a stalemated player. This rule appeared again in some medieval chess variations in England c. 1600. According to some sources, there was no stalemate, though this is improbable.
• The player that is first to bare the opponent's king (capture all the pieces except the king) wins. In shatranj this is also a win, but only if the opponent cannot bare the player's king on the next move in return.

See also

• Liubo
• Chaturaji, four-handed chess-like game
• Origins of chess
• Chess in early literature

Further reading

• A History of Chess, H.J.R. Murray (1913), ISBN 0-936317-01-9.
• The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, D.B. Pritchard (1994), ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
• The Oxford History of Board Games, David Parlett (1999) ISBN 0-19-212998-8.
• Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them, Edward Falkener (1892, reissued 1961) ISBN 0-486-20739-0
• Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1992). The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280049-3 
• Davidson, Henry (1949). A Short History of Chess. McKay. ISBN 0-679-14550-8 (1981 paperback)  

External links

• Chaturanga The Chess Variant Pages
• Software including the different historical rules variants