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Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Sam wrote on Wed, Aug 14, 2002 01:50 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

I like the information that was added in, but can we really prove that this game came before chinese chess?

Peter Aronson wrote on Wed, Aug 14, 2002 04:16 PM UTC:

The real problem in determining which came first, Chaturanga or Xiangqi (or more likely, the ancestors of each) that when you come down to it, historically games have not been considered important enought to be frequently mentioned in the historical record. Last I knew, we had earlier clear mentions for Chaturanga than Xiangqi, but this may not mean very much -- both games could easily have been played for centuries without making their way into a surviving document. Of course, there is also the issue that with commerce between east and west, the two games could have 'co-evolved' with neither of them coming clearly before the other.

Nigel Shaughnessy wrote on Sun, Sep 1, 2002 06:49 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

The black pawn that moves to, let us say b8, will get promoted to a knight. But what if it moved diagonally to b8 from a7 (by capturing)? Does it become a rook or knight? Please email me at [email protected] or [email protected]

Nigel Shaughnessy wrote on Sun, Sep 1, 2002 07:16 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I can nowhere find in your site the chess game called 'Indian Style Chess'
which is played by many orthodox families especially in Delhi (India). 
The features different from the international style are: (1) Instead of
castling, king moves 'horsefully' once in the game before check (once
check given, loses privilege); (2) Kings & Queens not aligned (each king
faces opp queen); (3) Pawn moving once forward only;  (4) Promotion only
on rank piece (rook, bishop, knight, queen) [not clear about exact rule re
this]; (5) King cannot be left alone on board: must have at least a piece
or two pawns i.e. if Black has only king & queen, then White cannot kill
the queen.  Please tell me where I can find the rules of Indian Style
Chess?  Please email me at [email protected] or
[email protected]

David Howe wrote on Mon, Sep 2, 2002 02:02 PM UTC:

According to David Pritchard, there is no single set of rules for Indian Chess. I will work on a web page describing the common ruleset.

WRWilliams wrote on Sat, Nov 2, 2002 08:24 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Wonderful research done here.
Please keep up the good work.
How could we be of help to you?
I hope to start playing soon.
Could you give me websites?
I'm at [email protected].

Anonymous wrote on Sun, Nov 3, 2002 09:57 PM UTC:Poor ★

IT DIDN'T GIVE ANY INFO I NEEDED ABOUT CHESS!!!!!!!

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Nov 9, 2002 08:28 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

LOVED it thankyou thankyou thankyou. i want to start a board games club at
my school, where people can play not just the ordinary games but also
games like chaturanga and also ancient viking games i've been researching.
your site was an awesome help. if it all works i'll DEFINITELY be teaching
them all chaturanga. if anyone thinks of any other usual or rare games we
should play please email the name, (and rules if you can ;))...
[email protected]

i love your site so much... i can't wait to teach my sister the original
of all chess. wow.

nellyfan wrote on Fri, Dec 13, 2002 03:47 PM UTC:

Nothing about chess

nellyfan wrote on Fri, Dec 13, 2002 03:47 PM UTC:

Nothing about chess

Anonymous wrote on Fri, Feb 21, 2003 09:03 PM UTC:Poor ★

your history is an error.(even though, i do give you credit for trying!) however, you said nothing about current chess that is played in tournaments and such. if you added this info., then you be improving greatly.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Mar 2, 2003 10:27 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

This is the only reference that I have seen to the rule that pawns must promote to the piece on whose square they promote, which I suspect may have been a variation to the usual rules. In fact the rule could be adapted as a minor variation to most kinds of chess, although it would not suit Shogi. My one reservation is the problem of the king's square, which I feel should be treated as its symmetric neighbour (counsellor or queen) for this purpose.

Mike Wilson wrote on Fri, May 9, 2003 08:39 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

The page itself and the resource is just wonderful, as always. The explanation of Chaturanga is definitely useful and playable. The history may be in error; see <A HREF='http://www.samsloan.com/origin.htm'>http://www.samsloan.com/origin.htm</A> for a detailed discussion of the origin of chess. Hans, you may wish to include a link to this discussion and/or some of the content in your pages!

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, May 25, 2003 06:46 AM UTC:

Sam Sloan's website shows a strong perference for a Chinese origin, but I
find an Indian origin more likely. Horses and chariots were established in
Indian armies by the time Chaturanga was invented, hence the name meaning
an army that included them. Chariots as pieces were derived with the board
from the older game of Ashtapada. Elephants must surely have been a piece
in India first, and a feature added in India to a Chinese game would be
unlikerly to find its way into the original. It is more plausible that the
Chinese invented a game on square corners with undifferentiated pieces,
discovered that the Indians had one on square centres with varied pieces,
and adapted the Indian pieces for the Chinese board.
	An interesting way to combine ancient and modern would be what I term
Recapitulative Chess: a 9rx8f Chaturanga variant allowing promotion (on
the 9th rank) of Elephants to Bishops, Ferzes to Queens, and Pawns to any
modern piece. The extra rank is required because Elephants cannot reach
the 8th!

Anonymous wrote on Tue, May 27, 2003 01:59 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

1. Elephants were indeed present in China at the time of invention of Chinese Chess (203BC), as were horsemen and chariots, as demonstrated in David Li's book The Origins of Chess (<a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0963785222/104-4808093-237594 3?vi=glance'>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0963785222/104-4808093-237594 3?vi=glance</a>). For example, Sun Tzu's The Art of War mentions chariots and recommends that they be positioned at the sides for a real army, hence their positions in the game that mimicks a real army. As a side note, Murray's research is incomplete because he did not have proficiency in the Chinese language and did his best with documents of Indian origin. 2. It is more likely that the Chinese had the pieces on the points in the tradition of Wei Qi (Go), also invented in China even earlier than Chinese Chess, and that their Indian discoverers, not knowing that the pieces belong on the points, decided to put them within the squares instead. It is equally likely that the Indian discoverers gave the game a name that they were more familiar with (Chaturanga, for example) since they did not understand the Chinese name for it (Xiang Qi, pronounced Shang chi). 3. For the differentiated pieces in Chinese Chess, David Li's response: 'As noted in my book, proto-chess (the earliest form of chess of any kind, the forerunner of Xiangqi) was invented in 203 BCE by Han Xin, the commander-in-chief of Han, during the period of Chu-Han Conflict, where Chu was a border-state whose language was different from Han's. Incidentally, the color of Han's flag was red; that of Chu, black. Thus, in Xiangqi, the color of the two sides are red and black, with red considered the superior force. The reason for the slight differences in characters is, again, to convey the superiority of red pieces. Generally, as to the chariot, the red piece has 'man' as the radical, while the black piece has none -- this is to suggest that the black chariot is unmanned (the man/men occupying the chariot had fled); ditto for the horse (manned in red and unmanned in black). The word for the black pawn has, as one of its many meanings, dead, thereby conveying similar meanings of red's superiority.' The idea is to imply that the side of the army that the inventor was commanding was superior.

Anonymous wrote on Wed, Jun 11, 2003 10:35 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Amazing work! I got all the information i needed from this sight

hemp wrote on Wed, Jun 25, 2003 12:55 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

not excellent because you not specified a free game.
i think ocidental chess is better. i think the idea of promotion in
chaturanga is nice, but not filosophic.

i love the passage. the chess we play in ocident is perfect. like
partenon.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Jun 28, 2003 07:17 AM UTC:

All right, I did not know that war elephants were used in China, nor do I
yet know to what extent. They were used intermittently around the
Mediterranean (Rome v Carthage might be an interesting Chess with
Different Armies) but were hardly the norm there, and I suspect that this
may also have been true in China. They were worthy enough of remark for
the Chinese game to be named after them. In India they were familiar in
both military and civilian life. The tale of the red and black flags is
evocative enough but how much truth there is in it is another matter.
There are plenty of legends of the origins of Chess, both prose and verse,
and many of them are singularly unconvincing.
	Incidentally Hemp's comment uses an old-fashioned definition of the
Orient-Occident divide. A century ago India and even the Middle East were
described as Oriental because culture there was exotic to Europeans.
However increasing ethnic awareness has led to humans in most of those
parts being recognised as ethnically far closer to Europeans than to East
Asians and therefore included as Occidentals. It is this modern divide
that is used in the Oriental Variants index, which covers only variants
from, or based on those from, East Asia. Another example is my describing
the Knight as Occidental when contrasting it with its nearest Shogi and
Xiang Qi equivalents; I am not neglecting India but including it.

st wrote on Sun, Jul 27, 2003 10:04 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

is there a company that sells Chaturanga sets??

Baz wrote on Fri, Aug 1, 2003 09:21 AM UTC:

Chaturanga CD Rom is advertised at chesscentral.com.

Miles wrote on Sun, Aug 10, 2003 12:55 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Wow! This page rocks!!! I've always wanted to play Chaturanga ever since I read about it in my encyclopedia, but my encyclopedia did not explain how the game was played. Thanks to this website, I not only know the rules of Chaturanga, but I also know that it can be played with a regular chessboard. I wish Chinese chess was like that, because a regular chessboard is the only one I have right now.

Skye wrote on Tue, Aug 12, 2003 08:29 PM UTC:

does this game have black and white squares or are they all one color?

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Tue, Aug 12, 2003 08:56 PM UTC:

The ancient forms of chess, Chaturanga and Shatranj used uncheckered boards.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Oct 4, 2003 05:57 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

Further to the last comment the authentic 'Ashtapada', though unchequered, did have some patterning. The intersections of ranks 1/4/5/8 and files a/d/e/h were marked with an X.