Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Jason L. wrote:

I can't believe no one until now has noticed that 2 boards are just the same thing with the river removed and the pieces being played within the squares or on intersection points.

I can't believe it either, mainly because I know it to be false. This has been noticed before. For example, I pointed it out in my How to Play Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) video, posted to Youtube on October 13, 2010. On December 21, 2008, I made the same observation in this comment, which addresses the same topic as you've been addressing here but takes the Chaturanga-first position.

> I can't believe no one until now has noticed that 2 boards are just 
> the same thing with the river removed and the pieces being played 
> within the squares or on intersection points.

In fact this is exactly how I use the board in my multi-cultural min Chess set. Just slip in the River between the two board halves when playing Xianhqi.

Yes, and Chinese people are willing to acknowledge that the religions they
look to are from India. 

But does that mean we should ignore the fact that the Chinese were strong
at board games and that Xiangqi as we know it today and not that other game
(Xiangxi) which is not a war board game apparently is just the 19x19 Weiqi
(Go) board divided into 4 pieces for a 9x10 board?

What is more likely? That the Chinese invent Weiqi as late as the 6th
Century B.C. or whenever it was and then invent another game using 1/4 of
the board that is also played on the intersection points as Weiqi is and
includes some of the same principals such as being blocked.

Or rather, the Indians who are not into board games culturally invented a
game played on the squares rather than intersection points with the same
moves as Xiangqi as it was during the Tang Dynasty but the minister and
counselor's movements are essentially updated into the modern day bishop
and queen in Europe later on because those movements do not fit the game to
begin with. Why? Because the soldiers or pawns are right in front of the
major pieces so a counselor moving up one diagonal square is hardly
interesting at all and the minister (not elephant) is also rather dull in
the game because it has nothing to defend really.

If the Indian version was really invented by them, you would think that
India would have a long history of playing the game, but they don't. Anand
is not proof of India's long history of playing the game since 600 A.D. or
so.

Europeans starting around the 1400's or a little later have a long history
of making the pieces move right on the 8x8 board and producing tons of
talented players. In fact, the real improvements were made by the
Europeans. The pawns can move 2 spaces on its first move because it is on
the 2nd row instead of the 4th. The rule en passant (French word) has to be
added to prevent players from illegally advancing pawns without a fight
against another pawn. Castling is added to the game. We call it castling
since there were castles in Europe! Seems like the game wasn't really
playable by modern standards until it got to Europe.

How come there isn't a single modern opening named after anything Indian?
Did the Indians invent a game with awkward moving pieces and then abandon
it only to find it again like 1,000 years later with all these openings
named after European people and countries?

Or maybe a board game with pieces that moved right on a 9x10 board had the
pieces put in the squares on an 8x8 board and the pawns were moved back the
2nd rank and filled in for aesthetic reasons, but no other necessary
changes were made to the counselor and minister (elephant) so the game is
not really playable and its slow also.

If the modern Chinese version was already basically done by 800 or so
during the Tang Dynasty and the queen piece was added during the Middle
Ages in Europe, which game probably came first? A game with pieces that
have not changed in their design but only their position on the board and
the number of pieces there, or a game with pieces in the middle of the
board that don't fit there until it gets a makeover like 600 years later
in a different part of the world?

So I am proposing to people that in terms of board game design which all of
us can think about on paper and pencil, that when a game reaches its modern
form like 600-800 years before another game that looks quite similar to it,
then that game most likely came first. It's not absolute proof, but it's
a bit like common sense.

As I have mentioned before, don't forget archeological findings found
before 600 or so.

The transmission of religion and spirituality from a country strong in
those aspects does not have any direct relationship with a board game based
on war. That's also ignoring the fact that Weiqi came from China. That
statement suggests a superiority of Indian culture in every respect instead
of looking at all the factors involved.

How come no one ever talks about Weiqi when discussing the origin of chess
if certain principals are similar? It's like the world's oldest board
game that is still played today must be ignored in order to make the
assertion without much good reason that a game made famous in Europe is the
original chess game in the ENTIRE world.

Regarding the document that Dr. Li quotes in his book. It was apparently
written in 1793, and it's about how General Han Xin invented the game 379
years after Confucius and you can see in Chinese the actual character Xiang
Qi in the document. If the document was written in 1793, no Chinese person
would put out the possibility that Xiang Qi could have meant another board
game that was not played any longer for like over a thousand years.

It's true the document does not have a description of how the game is
played but describes the condition of the camp during winter.

So I don't think the document proves that the game was first started in
203 B.C. or whenever, but to say that the document might be referring to
another game with the same name even though such a misunderstanding could
not occur in 1793, is like the Western cure all thinking to discredit the
Chinese assertion that the game was invented in China without any foreign
influence.

In the Western world, when we say 'Chess' we do not mean any other
version of Chess other than the Western version of it which we presume to
be an original game as the name 'Chess' suggests. Therefore, if someone
writes a document in the Western world after it has been played for at
least a few hundred years, then it is not that reasonable to say that the
word 'Chess' does not mean Chess as we know it today.

Does anyone ask anyone what do they mean by 'Chess' in the Western world?
Like is it Japanese chess, Chinese Chess, or Korean Chess?

So in the Chinese world after playing Xiangqi in its modern form for like
1,000 years, an author would not quote a different game with the same exact
2 characters if it was not in play anymore. That would be causing a very
illogical misunderstanding and there isn't a single Chinese person today
that would think that that document from 1793 would be referring to
anything else. In fact, if you ask your average Chinese person that there
was a game named Xiangxi or Xiangqi that has nothing to do with Xiangqi as
we know it today, they would probably not know what you are talking about
unless they were a board game historian.

But it appears that Westerners who believe Chess comes from India because
the English have said so over and over again, seem to know how to interpret
Chinese documents better.

Anyway, Dr. Li's books lacks cites, but the process he suggests in the
book of how Xiangqi was developed and the charts of how the game was
developed are reasonable. The game has always been well designed and they
just kept adding pieces to it until the back row was totally filled up.

At first, the general was one space up on the 5th column with the adjutant
(counselor) behind it. Interestingly enough, the Korean version of Xiangqi
has the general in that position till today. The Japanese and Koreans who
borrow from the Chinese and then make it their own have a tendency to
preserve a great deal of Chinese culture in many ways.

There was no minister at first and there were always 5 foot soldiers spaced
apart like that in the 4th row with the chariot and horse placed where they
still are on the first row. After Han Xin is executed for treason and his
writings destroyed, his game which is apparently named after the Prince of
Chu (Xiang qi) and not an elephant piece, is lost among the common people
until it gets revived again in 600 or so where it adds more pieces.

The minister is added in front of the general on the 3rd row. Then the 2
cannon pieces are added on the 3rd row prompting the need for more defense.
Another counselor is added as well as another minister and everything is
moved to the back row.

The back row is a bit crowded and the horse can only move up the 3rd row on
its first move instead of the 2nd row because the minister piece is now
blocking it.

So whether you believe these alleged Chinese sources Li is referring to
discuss the making of Xiangqi into its original form is your own choice,
but I am just referring to board game design. It's a lot more reasonable
to believe that the game developed on its own from Weiqi and the teachings
of Sun Tze's Art of War than it is to think the Chinese took an awkward
game from India and made it better by changing the positions of the pieces
so their movements have a purpose.

So if you guys would like to discuss the evolution of board game design,
then we can discuss it. I am not a chess historian, so please don't give
me the task of producing what the Western world considers to be hard
evidence of Xiangqi being invented in China and not a borrowed Indian game
as Europe likes to believe.

But I hope that by putting down the apparent evolution of Xiangqi here,
that I am discussing the development of the board game and coming to
probable conclusions based on how board games can change over time. If 2
board games are apparently very similar, one can make reasonable judgments
based on how the pieces developed over time and 'when' they developed
into its modern form. Like I said, there's a difference of about 800 years
or so between Western Chess' modern form and Xiangqi's modern form. Yes,
there is still room for argument, but I am just stating what is more
likely.

What is that rule called? Occam's Razor. The theory that is the most
simple one is most likely correct.

In this case, a game that comes to its modern form about 800 years before
its apparent cousin played on squares instead of intersection points comes
to its modern form, most likely came first and not the other way around.

A culture that wants all cultured people to play board games develops a
board game exactly 1/4 the size of an existing board game at least a few
hundred years after the former board game is invented. The board game is
revived 800 years later or so and the current dynasty (Tang) promotes the
game and it goes out to the rest of the world in places like India, Korea,
Japan, and Persia.

Or the opposite train of thought, a culture strong in board games, borrows
an awkward board game from a culture that does not promote board games and
then develops it into its modern form just 200 years later while the
supposed original game does not obtain its modern form until it is shipped
off to another continent before it reaches its modern form.

The early Indian game has a 'queen' that moves one space diagonally only
and has an elephant that moves exactly 2 spaces diagonally are both
suspiciously the same to the adjutant/counselor piece and minister piece
(minus the ability to jump over a piece) in Xiangqi. The early queen and
bishop do very little in the Indian game, while they perform a very
specific defensive purpose in Xiangqi which is to defend the general on all
4 sides by moving diagonally either 1 space or 2 spaces. The general is on
the 2nd rank in Xiangqi so the adjutant can go around all 4 sides without
the general moving.

The adjutant/queen and minister/bishop work well in one game and doesn't
work well in the other. Which pieces were designed for its board and setup
and which one was most likely just borrowed from the other game because the
pieces don't fit the game? Occam's Razor again.

A group of scholars in Europe state only sources from India as evidence
that the first chess game in the world is from India because the game they
play is from it. The scholars have no interest in looking at sources in
other languages as it does not support their argument.

Later on, scholars from that other large Asian country suggest a much
earlier date and the European scholars can't take it and don't want to
take back what they have been saying for like 300-400 years because that
would look silly. Besides the whole world speaks English and not Chinese so
information has been monopolized world's most influential empire. Occam's
Razor.

A minister piece is developed called Xiang much later the initial game was
developed. It is a homonym and one of them is 'elephant' even though
nothing suggests that that piece literally means elephant but everything
does in fact suggest it is a minister of the kingdom with swifter movement
than the adjutant. A 3 person game is also developed later in the Song
Dyansty that has 3 different pieces pronounced Xiang. 1 of them is elephant
and the 2 others are not. On the other hand, the chariot, cannon, and horse
all mean the same thing for all 3 sides. They do not use homonyms.

The same piece is found in the Indian game and is literally an elephant and
that culture happens to love elephants and the Chinese did not use
elephants in war as far as I know.

Oh boy, the European scholars have won some points here. Too bad many
Chinese characters have the same sound and this so-called proof is actually
a lack of understanding of the Chinese language.

Well, that was a long response. First of all, it is not unheard of that something created in one place becomes far more popular someplace else. Check out the article 7 Things From America That Are Insanely Popular Overseas, and also note that the author is Chinese. So, the relative unpopularity of any Chess ancestors in India does not rule out the the possibility that Chess has its origins there. Although there isn't much Indian literature on any possible ancestors of Chess, I do know that Chatrang became popular in Persia, and the Persians attributed the game's origins to India, not to themselves. Since India is between Persia and China, it certainly remains possible that the Persians picked up a Chinese game from Indian sources without knowing of its Chinese origins. But I am not convinced that this happened.

It seems likely that the common ancestor of Chess and Xiang Qi did not have a Cannon in it. The remaining question is whether that common ancestor is more like Xiang Qi or more like Shatranj, such as whether it was played on points or spaces, whether Knights and Elephants could be blocked, and whether there was a river and a palace. If we look at the other regional Chess variants of Asia, we find that Korea's Janggi is the only other one resembling Xiang Qi in any of these respects, and Xiang Qi remains the only regional variant that has a river. Since Janggi has Cannons, it is safe to assume that Janggi is based on a later form of the game, not on the original game. I know China and Korea have had close ties for over two millennia. I am currently watching Jumong, a Korean drama which shows relations between the Korean nation of Puyo and the Chinese Han dynasty before the time of Christ. Since you mentioned the Tang, I'll also mention that I know from The Great Queen Seondeok that the Tang were allies with the Korean kingdom of Silla, and Seondeok's nephew Chun Chu, who became King Muyeol of Silla, lived for a time with the Tang in China. Given such close relations between China and Korea, I would expect earlier forms of Chess to have made their way into Korea if indeed Chess was of Chinese origin. But, as far as I can tell, Korea only got a later version of the game. The other regional Chess variants of continental Asia -- Burmese Chess, Thai Chess, and Malay Chess -- were all played on the spaces of an 8x8 board with the same pieces as Shatranj, and they are all more like Shatranj than they are like Xiang Qi. Shogi is also played on the spaces of the board despite the popularity of Go in Japan. In general, if the original form of Chess was closer to Xiang Qi than to Shatranj, I would expect more similarity to Xiang Qi among Asia's other regional Chess variants, and I don't see that.

As a game designer, I have witnessed the evolution of my own games from inferior games. I am not always likely to invent a great game right off the bat. My best games are refinements of ideas that first came to life in inferior games. For example, Eurasian Chess is superior to the earlier Yang Qi, and Kamikaze Mortal Shogi is superior to the earlier Mortal Chessgi. Given that Chess and Xiang Qi are both superior to Shatranj, it seems likely that both are improvements upon an original game, and the evidence suggests that this game is more like Shatranj than it is like Xiang Qi.

The fact that Xiang Qi reached its current form before Chess did speaks more to the differences between China and Europe than it does to the origins of Chess. China has had a larger, more homogeneous culture than Europe has ever had for many centuries. Reasons for this are described in Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel, which I am currently reading. With greater political stability, greater size, and greater homogeneity of culture, it would be natural for the seed of Chaturanga to grow more quickly in the soil of China than in Europe. Besides that, Europe picked up the game from the Muslims, who got it from Persia, who got it from India, whereas China and India share a common border. So, even if the game is of Indian origin, it is natural that China would have a headstart over Europe.

I cannot say for sure whether Chess is of Indian origin. But what I am fairly sure of is that the common ancestor of Chess and Xiang Qi was closer to Shatranj than it was to Xiang Qi.

Yes, you make good points about how other variants in Asia are closer to
the Shatranj game, but that does not make me think that that was the
original game because of the thought historical chronology of the game
suggested by Dr. Li.

As the book points out, early on the 9x10 intersection board was not
accepted by the Persians and the 8x8 board played in the squares was also
developed by the Chinese as an experiment. This version was accepted by
other cultures and that is why other countries which are quite close to
China like Thailand are close to Shatranj.

Shogi seems to be a mix of Xiangqi and Shatranj so its possible it was
influenced by both and over a long period of time. The pawns in that game
move forward and capture the same way which suggests influence from
Xiangqi, but many other aspects of that game are either Japanese
developments or influence from Shatranj.

So while I think your point is true that most chess variations in the world
are closer to Shatranj with Korean chess being the exception, coming from
my Chinese point of view, it doesn't really matter because 1st century
B.C. which is at least 400 years after Weiqi is invented seems more
reasonable to me and I am not stuck on intersection points or squares
because they are basically the same thing.

The logical points brought forth in Dr. Li's book is enough for me and I
look forward to one day looking at supposedly supporting evidence either in
Chinese literature or artifacts being found in China that support the
existence of Xiangqi as we know it today.

If this debate didn't exist between China and the West, Chinese scholars
would say Xiangqi started around 1 B.C. or around the beginning of the Han
dynasty. They did not make that time period up just to be 800 years before
the start of Chaturanga in India.

The Chinese did not proclaim their game as the first one, but just think
it's their own game from around that time. It was the West that proclaimed
that Chaturanga was first and that automatically all other forms of chess
are derived from it without looking into other sources from other
countries.

It seems that the Chinese are confident of their own history while the West
has to make proclamations about other cultures in order to boost the
superiority of their own culture. If you look at some of the quotes from
the British writers, they want to equate all inventions that Chinese
believe they had to the Indians. It's not about Chess. It's about putting
down China because the Brits seemed to hate them for the last 300-400
years. Or rather, China wasn't a British colony so its history needed to
be ignored.

I'm sure the Dr. Li book won't have much of an influence on anyone who is
so sure of the Chaturanga theory that is known as fact in the Western
world.

Even if several artifacts dated well before 600 A.D. were found throughout
Asia, it wouldn't budge a single Westerner's assumption that Chaturanga
was the origin of all chess games out there.

Playing chess within squares is more popular throughout all the world's
chess variants. Does that make it the original game or could that just be
the version that was exported out of China that was accepted by other
cultures?

Regarding the diagrams on the supposed evolution of Xiangqi in Li's book,
the original version did not have any ministers but just one adjutant.

If Chaturanga is the original game and the Chinese copied it from India,
that means they took out 2 ministers/bishops and 3 pawns and rearranged
them on the 4th rank so they'd be split.

That seems unlikely that a culture would delete pieces it borrowed.

In the Chinese chronology, 1 minister was added later, and then later on
there was 2 ministers and 2 adjutants as well as 2 cannon.

But obviously, the game had already been transplanted to other parts of
Asia and the Middle East where the cannon was not included.

I gave most of my reasons in the last post so this one will be a bit
shorter.

We need to look at sources from all over the world and their possible dates
to make solid conclusions about chess origins.

However, I don't see a single shred of influence in Xiangqi from any other
game from its original form to its modern form 1,000 years later. And I can
say that because the first version of Chaturanga looks like a late version
of Xiangqi without the cannon pieces.

The original version of Xiangqi had a very open board. Only 11 pieces for
each side. 5 foot soldiers, 2 chariots, 2 horseman, 1 adjutant placed
behind the general, and the general on the 2nd rank by himself.

Now assuming that a chess game starting from scratch would have less pieces
and not more, which game looks like it is the more likely predecessor
assuming they really are related cousins?

A game like Chaturanga with 16 pieces on it with the back row filled up and
the soldiers/pawns fully filled, or a fairly empty board with only 5 pieces
on the back row and a lone general on the 2nd row.

Which board looks like an earlier development?

If you have the book, its illustration 20 on page 173.

If I were designing a chess game, I would start with the basics and then
add more later on to spice up the game. Since all variants of Chess were
being experimented on by various cultures throughout the world as things
were adjusted and added on, the earliest game would most likely be the one
with the least number of pieces on its original board which is 22 for
Xiangqi as opposed to 32 for Chaturanga which has 2 ministers/bishops in it
that did not exist in Xiangqi at first.

If one assumes Xiangqi is taken from Chaturanga, that means the Chinese
deleted pieces and then put them back at some later point in the Tang
dynasty. That doesn't seem very logical. If pieces get deleted, that means
they don't work right, but the Chinese supposedly deleted pieces and then
put them back if you follow the Indian chess origin theory.

On the other hand, most board games start with less and then later
developments generally add more to the game and fix up some rules to make
it run smoother.

So I hate to repeat that old adage Occam's Razor, but the more I look at
diagrams in that Li book of early Xiangqi boards, the more brian-twisting I
need to do in order to find some kind of logical justification for things
being the other way around.

The West always compares the original Chaturanga board to the modern
version of Xiangqi and sees how similar they are in terms of pieces and
movement, so that's all the proof that is needed without considering if
the converse could be true.

Then the Chinese look into their own records and produce boards with less
pieces which look more like an early version of Chess, but the West hasn't
looked at those early designs and has tried to reverse engineer history in
its own way by only looking at the modern version of Chinese Chess.

A Chinese person (not me) really needs to bring all the relevant and
credible documents towards so-called early designs of Xiangqi to the world
so the rest of us don't have to get into these discussions over whose
culture is superior or whatever.

Unfortunately, the Chinese have a habit of destroying each other's things
because they are always fighting amongst themselves given that they think
there is nothing else worth fighting for except what we know as China
today.

I have no notion that the question of when or where chess originated in Asia will prove anyone's culture superior. Bringing relevant and credible documents forward would indeed do a good deal toward settling this question. According to Dr. Li, General Xan died in political disfavor, and his papers were destroyed, and his game fell into disuse for eight hundred years. How, please, was it then restored to use and favor?

Okay, first I don't own a copy of David Li's book. So I can't follow your references to it.

Since you keep invoking Occam's Razor, I will point out that it favors my theory, not yours. To account for why other regional Chess variants are more like Shatranj, your theory supposes that they are descended from a descendant of the original game that lost its similarities to Weiqi. My theory is simpler than this, and it goes like this. (1) Shatranj, Malay Chess, Thai Chess, Burmese Chess, and Xiang Qi all share a common ancestor. (2) This common ancestor was played on an 8x8 board with 16 pieces per side, these being 8 Pawns, 1 King, 1 Counselor, 2 Elephants, 2 Horses, and 2 Chariots. (3) This game was probably invented in southwest Asia, spreading to China and southeast Asia through trade routes. (4) In China, someone familiar with Weiqi modified the game to take on a very different form, whereas in southeast Asia, the game stayed closer to its original form. (5) Since Korea is in northeast Asia, and its only neighbor by land is China, it got only the Chinese version instead of the original. (6) Japan, relying more on sea travel due to being an island nation, may have picked up versions from southeast Asia, as well as Korea. The Korean influence on Shogi is seen mainly in the name, which is identical when written with Chinese characters.

Let me add that we are not arguing about whose culture is superior. When it comes to India vs. China, both cultures are renowned, and it matters little which is the birthplace of Chess. Even if India is the birthplace of Chess, China still has much in its favor. It is the birthplace of Go, and more importantly, its culture has been much more egalitarian than India's. Indian culture has been dominated by the caste system of Hinduism, whereas China accepted Buddhism, a reform of Hinduism that rejected the caste system, and its promotion of Confucianism led to an egalitarian society in which education mattered more than birth.

On a personal note, I am neither Chinese nor Indian, but I'm close to some Chinese people, and I don't currently have any Indian friends. So, if anything, I have a slight preference in favor of China being the birthplace of Chess. For me, this is about facts and evidence, and what I know tends to favor the Indian origin of Chess. What I've read of David Li's theory hasn't convinced me.

Hey, H.G., i came across this webpage the other day, i'd like to know if you have ever seen this and what you think.

http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/5/4/7/15475/15475.htm

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 Books 4, 5, 6 and 7 / Optic, Oliver, 1822-1897

the intersting part is where Yudhishthira says ...

Yudhishthira replied, 'Ye sons of the Kuru race, ye bulls among men, hear
what I shall do on appearing before king Virata. Presenting myself as a
Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become
a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards
beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue,
by throws of black and red dice.

I do have David Li's book, which I bought years ago. I had read a favorable review of it that led me to expect that he had interesting new evidence on the origin of chess, but I was disappointed to find that the book merely piled up a tower of unsupported speculations. 

The closest thing to evidence was an anecdotal account of Xiang-Qi's being invented by a figure from ancient Chinese history, who as I recall lived a few centuries before Christ, the anecdote being attributed to a Chinese document only a few centuries old. This is valueless as evidence of such a theory: it means only that someone about the time of Newton or Voltaire wrote down a legend about something that had happened about the time of Alexander the Great. Without earlier documents, how could the late author know anything about events so far in his own past? Maybe the 18th century Chinese author got the story from an earlier period, but there were plenty of earlier periods between the supposed events and our document when such a legend could have been composed.

Besides this legend, everything I could find in Li's book was a seemingly endless parade of descriptions of how it MIGHT HAVE happened that way, and how it's really not so implausible that it COULD HAVE happened that way. Well, of course, it MIGHT have, as I didn't need Li's book to know. But that's what we call 'idle speculation', not evidence. Someone needs to find some much older documents, or dig up some very old equipment, or something, or this theory will remain negligible.

It is this 4 colour chess variant: 4-handed Chaturanga with dice.
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/4chaturanga.htm
Please try my implementation. It plays rather well. It is also quite fun. This variant could possibly be popularized.
/Mats

I'm not here to defend David Li's book because I too found the lack cites
disappointing because we don't know if he's just making up a convenient
story to date Xiangqi back 800 years before the first Indian version or if
the research he did really does suggest this. The document written in the
late 1700's of course does not count as evidence because it's just a
story.

I have already written most of my points in earlier posts so there's no
need to keep repeating them.

It can be argued both ways which game influenced the other because they are
so similar except one is played on the squares and one is played on the
intersection points and it can go both ways.

However, why is it more reasonable to assume the Indian version came first?
I don't see a reason to assume that that's the case.

I will try to reiterate my basic point here again. If the diagram on pg.
173 showing the early design of Xiangqi is legitimate and he didn't just
make it up, the development process of Xiangqi is not derived from Shatranj
because there are less pieces on the original Xiangqi board. There is no
minister in the game at first. Just one counselor. If you bring another
game over, you generally don't delete pieces from the board, but you might
modify the pieces or the board.

Therefore, it's common sense that the earlier game would have less pieces
on it and then more pieces get added later on. This is, a 2nd minister and
a 2nd counselor were added in later only when the 2 cannons were added.

So my key point which I am repeating again, is that to make a logical
comparison between Shatranj and the Xiangqi, you have to look at the
earliest version of Xiangqi and not the modern version of it which has the
board full of pieces.

Does this make sense to everyone? We don't need to agree on whether the
diagrams in the Li book are legit or not, but we should be able to agree on
the fact that an earlier game would have less pieces on the board than a
later game.

Shatranj and modern Xiangqi look similar so either could have influenced
the other, but the diagram on pg. 173 in that book shows us 1 counselor
sitting behind the general in the palace and that does not look like
Shatranj at all. Later on, 1 minister was added in front of the general.
That also does not look like Shatranj.

Only in the Tang-Song dynasty diagrams of Xiangqi was a 2nd minister
(bishop) added and a 2nd counselor and the general was pushed back to the
1st rank where the game finally looks like Shatranj.

In fact, modern setup of Janggi is more similar to the original Xinagqi
setup with the General on the 2nd row and not the first, and there are many
instances where Korea and Japan preserved an earlier Chinese version of
something and made it their own while the Chinese changed their ways and
their language. It's common to find Japanese usage of Han characters to
have a Tang dynasty meaning which modern Chinese is not similar to creating
confusion nowadays.

What can I say, living in Asia over here, I have learned to look at things
from the other way around as opposed to the way I looked at things in the
States where we assumed all good things must have come from Europe and
therefore India which later became a part of the British pride.

I was only saying the Weqi board divided into 4 parts is 10x9 which is
either an interesting coincidence or an explanation for where the 10x9
board came from in the first place. If we want to view things from the
Western superiority point of view, then we can believe the Chinese took the
8x8 board and put the pieces on the intersection points just to be
different or to be similar to Weiqi.

Xiangqi was not a direct predecessor of Weiqi. That is a connection game
and not a war game. I was just saying the board seems to be taken from it.

So just look at the earlier diagrams from the book because I am tired of
typing here. It's so obvious from the Chinese point of view that the game
was not copied from Shatranj which looks like a more modern version of
Xiangqi, it's not even funny.

When I discuss the topic with my Chinese friends either in Taiwan or
mainland China, people view the game as being from the Warring States
period or the Spring and Autumn period because of the emphasis on the
chariot. Chariots were supposedly not used starting with the Qin dynasty so
its a rather old piece.

So since this topic is about who thinks what, I am pointing out to you guys
that there's quite a few Chinese people out there who think its their game
and this is not something they copied from India. And Warring States period
and Spring and Autumn period are like 1000 years before 600 A.D.

But it is true that there's gap in the history Li is suggesting. A
convenient gap. His book claims the game was not revived among the general
public until the Tang dynasty which just at the same time the the Indian
version appears on the scene. Therefore, if you believe the Indian theory
which is also based on really nothing but Western arrogance and
superiority, then Li's story sounds like a convenient story to explain why
the game didn't game popularity among the public until around the same
time as the emergence of the first Indian game.

I would need to learn more about this from Chinese sources directly and not
just depend on Li's book for why the game was allegedly not played among
the public but only the royalty for a very long time.

But I did make an objective observation here. If Janggi was really taken
from Shatranj, then why did they put the King or General up on the 2nd row
when the so-called original or 2nd one after the original one in India does
not? Did the Koreans just get funny with their placement or is that just
because the original Xiangqi designs have the general up on the 2nd row.

Korea is so close to China that its reasonable the modern day version of
Janggi kept that older setup of the General.

Anyway, Li's book presents all the Western arguments which are always
based on the indisputable assumption that India is first or else the white
man loses face and the Chinese thinking has like several logical reasons
why the game was developed independently of Chaturanga.

And also, someone needs to confirm if the archeology discovery of so-called
chess pieces in Russia dated to 2nd century is really true or not. How come
no one is discussing this very obvious and important event? We are talking
about a difference of 4 centuries if those were really chess pieces
discovered along the Silk Road.

So once again the bigger picture. The Chinese think their game is about a
few hundred years older or around Qin dynasty and do NOT claim that
Chaturanga and every other version of chess in the world came from theirs
and don't care very much how those other chess games came about, but yet a
few mostly British authors INSIST to the entire world that chess in its
original form comes from India and not that nation called China because
they play a modern version of the Indian one.

The Chinese only care about the issue when they start getting accused of
copying things they feel are their own.

Anyway, from a player's standpoint, it's very obvious Xiangqi is older.
It's a more restricted game with less movement granted to the general.
When a game evolves, more movement is generally granted to pieces and not
less.

If we assume Chaturanga was first, that means the Chinese decreased the
movement of the pieces just so they could fit into a palace and get trapped
there. From a game design standpoint, this seems silly to think that the
Chinese would make pieces more restricted.

Also, it doesn't seem that reasonable that if you saw a game where the
pieces are placed in the middle of squares, that you would place them on
intersections instead and thereby increasing the number of spaces on the
board to 90 from 64.

And if you saw a game where there were 8 foot soldiers on the 2nd row, it
also seems very unlikely that you would not use that design and instead put
them on the 4th row but staggered instead of occupying every file.

It seems much more likely that in India and/or Persia the 8x8 in the square
version of the game was more acceptable culturally and the pawns were moved
back to the 2nd row and the horse was granted the power of jumping because
otherwise it can't move on its first move.

The Xiangqi horse or knight is obviously the older one. In terms of
gameplay, almost everything about Xinagqi feels older.

I'm not here to insist the Indian and Persians copied the Chinese. That's
their own business. I just think its wrong to make assertions about where a
civilization got their game from without even looking into that
civilization's history.

I've already said this before. That so-called Western Chess historians
don't feel the need to read one word of Chinese before they make their
bold assertion that the game travelled to China from India. That seems
rather ignorant and convenient and this mode of thinking seems to
continue.

That's like me saying India must have copied everything from the great
Chinese civilization but yet I don't care about reading one word their
language or looking into their history at all.

So out of respect for 1 billion plus people and their history, it would
really help people get along better in the world if others did not make
assertions about other's history without studying their history first. If
the Chinese don't say anything about where Chaturanga is from, then why do
Westerners have to say Xiangqi comes from Chaturanga? In fact the Chinese
probably don't even know what Chaturanga or Shatranj are.

Do you guys realize how arrogant this comes off as?

My Japanese friend saw the wiki site for Shogi and it also says it comes
from India. She was like... 'That's rather presumptuous.' On what basis
do we make this assumption?

And I know not all of you are anti-Chinese in general. I am just saying
this Chess invention assumption that exists in the Western world is really
without any real basis and we shouldn't keep saying 'something is
something' just because its been said in the language of English and other
Western languages for the past few hundred years.

I told you guys how silly the Encyclopedia Britannica supposedly is with
the invention of dominoes right? They say its from the 1700's yet the
Italians don't even play the game it seems and yet the Chinese are hard
core gamblers with dominoes in Pai Gow?

So yes, you can quote the great Encyclopedia Britannica if you like but it
should be noted that the authors who write these sources are Europeans and
would naturally know mostly when things popped up in Europe and they do not
have a vast knowledge of the entire world but just see things mostly from a
Western European view.

If this wasn't a chess site, we could debate about the Ming Dynasty's
navy and how it supposedly went to Mexico, Australia, East Africa, and
Italy before Columbus made his journey to America much later but already
had a map to go there.

That whole issue really gets the Western superiority people all riled up.
:)

And by the way, my friend has been to a Mexican village where the local
people have artwork showing the Chinese coming to visit them in the 1400's
and introducing how to raise chickens to them apparently. Good god, we need
to destroy any evidence all over the world of China having a navy in the
1400's that can reach as far as North America because it would destroy the
whole Western superiority complex! ;)

I'm pointing these things out, because I feel we are not even talking
about chess but just a mindset that we've been educated to believe in the
Western world. I read the Encyclopedia when I was a kid and I know things
are not as simple as it is laid out there.

You can find in the Oxford dictionary that Mao Zedong fought of the
Japanese invaders when in fact Russian and Japanese forces do not have much
mention of him ordering battles against them. Also, like every Chinese
person whether they are pro-CCP or pro-KMT knows that wasn't the case and
Mao was happy the Japanese were invading so he could build up his power
base for a final conflict which he still really lost if he didn't get
saved by America who didn't want Chiang to unite the country and make
China (gasp) strong.

But yet, the great Oxford dictionary is a legit source right? The
dictionary on my Mac Book Pro says for Mao:

'A cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and its effective
leader from the time of the Long March (1934–35), he eventually defeated
both the occupying Japanese and rival Kuomintang nationalist forces to
create the People's Republic of China in 1949.'

Are you going to believe that just because it comes from a Western
dictionary? According to interviews with people close to Mao like his
personal doctor, Mao was livid anytime CCP forces fought the Japanese. Why
help the enemy (KMT) like that? It's about taking over China, not helping
the Chinese people for heaven's sake!

I am getting off topic, but that's my point about chess history. Because
Murray says so everyone believes it because of his standing. But what
legitimate reasons does he give? Does he know Chinese or is he just saying
this is what it is because that's what he want to believe?

Does anyone wondering about this history of chess even want to know more
about Chinese history in regards to chess or if I happen to find something
that suggests it came from China, you guys will just say it's not
legitimate because of this that and the other? 'We have a book written by
Murray as well as numerous Western sources that say so otherwise.'

I must becoming David Li. This Western habit of assuming everything comes
from them is driving me nuts. I have too many Western friends in Asia that
walk around thinking like this and apparently this kind of thinking is much
too common.

Jason, You're sounding like a broken record. You keep repeating the same insubstantial and fallacious arguments. If the Chinese historical record shows that Xiangqi is not of Indian origin, show us this. Don't complain that westerners will not read Chinese sources when you cannot even produce one single Chinese source to back up what you're saying. Peter Banaschak has carefully looked into the Chinese sources on Xiangqi, as described in this article on his website, and he has not found adequate evidence that Xiangqi is earlier than Chaturanga.

Also, let me reiterate that the white man has no stake in whether the brown man or the yellow man created the original version of Chess. It is true that India was part of the British Empire. But so was Hong Kong. If it is at all prestigious for the British for them to think that Chess comes from India, it would be just as prestigious for them to think that it came from China, which Hong Kong is a part of. And if the British were really so motivated by racism to dishonestly claim an Indian origin for Chess, why didn't they just claim a European origin or a British origin for Chess? You keep trying to frame this as a racial issue, but it is not one.

And where did you pick up the idea that Americans believe all good things come from Europe, or by extension regions of the British Empire? It's ridiculous. I'm an American, and I've never met any other American who has claimed such a thing.

Chess was created by King Arthur, originally in the form we have it in now. When Queen Guinevere slept with Lancelot, Arthur decided the Queen was too powerful and reduced her power in the game. The game reached India through one of the knights of the round table who went there looking for the holy grail. In the meantime, the game became lost in Britain, because Arthur was killed by his own son Mordred, who never had a close enough bond with his father to learn the game from him. Since the Indians were savage heathens who worshiped animals instead of the one true God, they replaced the Bishops with Elephants. They also didn't understand rules like castling, because they had no castles, and en passant, because they didn't speak French. So they left those rules out. From there, the game spread to China and Persia. Because the Chinese were also heathens, their form of the game became even more corrupted. But since Islam had some affinity with the one true religion, even if it was a heresy, the Muslims preserved the Indian form without corruption. When the game came to Europe, where the one true religion had made its home, white Christians, with the help of God, were able to discern the true form of the game and return it to the ideal form originally created by King Arthur. So all hail Britannia. Britannia rules the waves. Uber alles Britannia. Oh, and speaking of how wonderful the British are, why did we ever overthrow them in this country? It just makes no sense. We should be putting Queen Elizabeth II on all our money, or better yet, King Arthur. And isn't it about time that we made English the official language of the United States? Does anyone really need another language? Wouldn't this more easily facilitate the spread of British culture to the rest of the world, which, of course, would be good for everyone, seeing as how all good things stem from Britain?

'Anyway, Li's book presents all the Western arguments which are always based on the indisputable assumption that India is first or else the white man loses face...' It seems to me that the British might have felt (not that I can discuss this with any nineteenth-century British) that they would lose face if they had chess from their own Indian subjects. I get the impression that they thought China more civilized and respectable than India.

As for Dr. Li's assertion that chess survived underground at the Imperial Court for eight hundred years, this is as completely unsupported as everything else he says about chess before the Tang Dynasty.

The two supposed chess pieces from Russia from the second century are actually from Uzbekistan (Dalverzin Tepe). They are an elephant and a bull, so they are not generally accepted as chess pieces. The earliest generally accepted chess pieces are also from Uzbekistan (Afrasiab, right by Samarkand), from the eighth (Christian) century. There are seven of them, covering all six ranks.

As for the Chinese naval expeditions of exploration some six centuries ago, I accept that they happened; they left archeological evidence here and there. We wicked westerners didn't destroy the records, the Chinese did. I have already stated that the Chinese originated gunpowder, rockets, and printing with movable type, and we have them from China. By the way, I have a Chihuahua. According to sources including the Wikipedia, archeology has found remains of dogs of this type, but larger, in Mexico in the centuries before the Spanish Conquest. Our small Chihuahuas are supposed to be derived from the pre-Conquest dogs crossed with Chinese miniatures brought by the Conquistadors. I asked for any evidence that the Conquistadors, or for that matter the Spanish of that period, had Chinese miniature dogs. Profound silence. I suggested that the Chinese miniature dogs had more likely been brought by the Chinese in the generations before the Spanish Conquest. Continued profound silence.

Jason, the rest of us have disclaimed any investment in whether chess originated in China, India, Iran, Bactria, or Antarctica. You are the only one--the only one!--who has suggested that pinning down the location where chess originated would say anything about the superiority of one nation over another.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Jason, I have excised a small part of your otherwise
well-written discussion. What I have done is remove opinions on a non-chess
topic. I understand people have strong opinions on many topics, but we get
heated up enough about chess here, and site rules specifically state
non-chess topics may be removed. I will do so when I feel it is in the best
interests of the site. Should you or anyone wish an explanation of my
decisions, please contact me at the email address listed on my person ID
page. Joe Joyce, editor, TCVP
******************************************
I believe that Xiangqi originates from China, but I did not come here to
say that the Persian and Indian versions are definitely copied from it.
It's assumed in Western chess origin discussions, that Chess originates
from India and that Far East Asian countries like China, Korea, and Japan
all copied it. That's the assumption I am pointing out here as being a
superiority thing.

The truth is that Westerners play Western chess on an 8x8 board. Therefore,
most would rather believe that the original game was the 8x8 game and not
some 9x10 intersection game played in dirty Chinatowns all over the world.

It's the same thing with Chinese people. They would rather believe that
their game came first. Gives them a sense of pride. I talk to a lot of
Chinese people about this, and they definitely prefer to believe their game
is an original design.

In more objective analyses on chess origin, documentation seems to support
India, archeology seems to support Persian, and game design seems to
support China.

The game design aspects I have been repeating like a broken record because
no one is acknowledging the really common sense things I am pointing out,
support a Chinese theory but do not prove a Chinese origin.

The British controlled all of India and Hong Kong is just a small part of
China. India was Britain's crown colony. So it's not the same situation.

The whole Xiangqi vs. Western Chess debate also extends into which game is
more complex and well designed. I have met many Westerners who immediately
bash Xiangqi as being a more simple game where the pieces don't move as
far as the bishop and queen. Xiangqi also has an incompetent horse that
can't even jump.

Well, the average number of moves to finish a Chess game is around 40 and
Xiangqi is around 47. The game tree complexity of Xiangqi is also about 20%
higher, but these facts are not considered of course. It's because of the
no-perptual check rule in Xiangqi that the game tree complexity is 20%
higher which artificially inflates the complexity! Not because of the
larger board of course. 

I don't know that much about archeology and documentation and what is
considered legitimate, but I do have common sense, and anyone who plays
these 2 games will feel that the Western chess game is more modern and
evolved. That means newer!

When teaching Xiangqi to Westerners over here, they feel that Xiangqi feels
more archaic because the pieces are more limited. That implies that the
game is older, and not newer.

I am talking about the game design aspect of course. If 2 games are
obviously related, the one with pieces that feels more archaic is probably
the older game. If you look at Courier Chess (the German 12x8 game) it is
obviously older than the modern version of the 8x8 game because of the
limited movement of many of the pieces. Without knowing the history of
Courier Chess and 8x8 Modern Chess, one can tell that Courier Chess is
older.

Why don't these common sense things apply to Xiangqi as well?

Forgive me for repeating a broken record, but it is fairly well recognized
that the best version of the 8x8 game was not finalized until the late
1400's when the modern queen and bishop were both used at the same time,
and the final version of Xiangqi came about in the Song Dynasty which is
about 500 years earlier.

Based on this game development timeline of the 2 games, which game most
likely came first? A game that finished its development 500 years after
another one or the one that finished its development 500 years before?

This is not rock solid proof, but it certainly suggests that the commonly
accepted India origin may be suspect based on a game design point of view.

So does anyone want to discuss the origin issue from a game design
standpoint, or are you guys going to attack me personally for suggesting
that this is a racist issue?

Let's take the minister/bishop/elephant piece for example. There was a
great deal of experimentation with this piece for around 1,000 years. There
was the Silver General move, which exists in Shogi and Thai Chess, there
was the 2 space diagonal jump move, and also a 2 space orthogonal jump for
this piece.

That means that between India, Persia, and Europe, it seems that we didn't
know quite what to do with this piece before settling on the long range
bishop.

Now, the Xiangqi minister or elephant if you will, has always had that same
exact movement which is 2 spaces diagonal and in the final modern version,
the 2 ministers are placed on the same diagonal so they support each other.
In Xiangqi history, the starting position and number of ministers changed,
but not the movement as far as I know.

So from a game design standpoint, if we assume the minister in Xiangqi and
bishop in 8x8 chess have a common origin, which game was it originally
designed for? A game where it did not undergo any change (movement wise) in
its entire history, or a game where there were at least 3 different
versions of it and didn't get fully developed until like almost 1,000
years later in Europe.

The jumping bishop couldn't even capture its counterpart because the 2
pieces will end up jumping over each other. That doesn't sound like good
game design to me. That seems like the piece was not designed for that
board, so the movement of the piece needed to be changed. It needed to
evolve into a piece that could move 1 or more spaces, so that bishops on
the same diagonal could capture each other and not always jump over each
other.

One more thing about elephants. Please keep in mind that Xiangqi pieces
originally did not have color, so the pieces were written with different
Han Chinese characters to distinguish them. Xiang (Prime Minister) rhymes
with Xiang (elephant), and the minister piece is supposed to simulate what
a high level gov't. official does in his own countryside. It stays near
home and doesn't go across the river to the other side.

Who would design an elephant piece that was mostly defensive? War elephants
are not defensive in real warfare. So the elephant debate does not apply to
Xiangqi.

Does anyone want to talk about game design and the evolution of pieces on
different boards?

I'm not here to try to present documentation of a Chinese source that
Xiangqi 'does not' come from India. Such documentation does not exist
probably, because no Chinese documentation would feel the need to say such
a thing literally because they probably never considered the possibility.

Just because Murray writes a big book on the Indian origin theory, doesn't
mean I need to provide a Chinese source that says it's not the case that
China copied India. I'm just looking at the bigger picture from another
point of view.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, the Chinese in general do not say that
the West copied chess from them, but just feel Xiangqi is their own game.
But the reverse is not true. The common notion in the West is that Xiangqi
comes from India as do all forms of chess.

I'm not even saying that India and Persia copied China. I'm just saying
that Xiangqi seems to be older for a lot of common sense reasons.

Yudhishthira replied, 'Ye sons of the Kuru race, ye bulls among men, hear
what I shall do on appearing before king Virata. Presenting myself as a
Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become
a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards
beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue,
by throws of black and red dice. I shall entertain the king with his
courtiers and friends. And while I shall continue to thus delight the
king, nobody will succeed in discovering me. And should the monarch ask
me, I shall say, 'Formerly I was the bosom friend of Yudhishthira.' I
tell you that it is thus that I shall pass my days.

Now replaceing 'chess-boards' with 'boards' and 'pawns' with 'pieces', 
we still have a very interesting verse here!

It is true there is not very much detail here, about the game, but that 
is to be expected. There is a drama going on in the life of Yudhishthira 
and his brothers, and he is explaining how he will disguise himself. That 
is the main purport of his talk. So, let's look at what we have about the game.

We have a game, played with dice, on a board, with pieces of four specified colors. There is no mention of piece movements at all, but, this is to be expected isn't it, Yudhishthira is talking about how he will disguise himself, not talking really about the game, which is not the main point.

Now John, you say .. 'So we have a gameboard, dice, and pieces of four specified colors but NO MENTION OF DIFFERENT TYPES. Not chess, probably pachisi.'
I don't understand why you say 'not chess, probably pachisi', can you explain why you say this. It seems to me that a game with dice, board, and pieces of 4 different colors could be 'Chaturaji'.