The story of chess

[P.K.Ramakrishnan]

I am writing this in the background of the current World Championship games being played at Chennai.

It is well known that the game of chess originated in India.

It was known as chaturangam.  It is to be split as chatur+

angam or four parts. 

This is what Amarasimha the well knon lexicographer says

about chaturangam:

hastyasvarathapaadaatam

senangam syat chatustayam //

The four parts of the sena are

hasti (elephant), asva (horse).

ratha (chariot) and foot soldier.

They protect the king and the Minister.

In the modern chess hasti is named bishop.

asva named the knight. ratha named the rook

and the foot soldier as the pawn.

It is unthinkable that a Queen participates in an war.  So also

the elephant is called bishop.

We do not know who gave these new names.

 

-----------------------------------
P.K.Ramakrishnan
http://peekayar.blogspot.com

[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

Please see the Wikipedia article shown below and its linked pages for a quick answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Early_history

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, November 21, 2013.

[G S S Murthy]

As an adjunct to the ongoing thread of discussion, I may mention the chess-knight's problem, where starting from

 one corner a knight has to cover all the cells once and once only. The earliest known solution is in Haravijaya (9th-10th century). One verse reads normally and the solution verse reads as per the knight's movement. Vedanta desika has also used this in Citra-stabaka of Padukasahasra. Prof.Knuth the well known Computer theoretician has researched in this area and has composed a set of verses in English in the same fashion.

Regards

Murthy

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My web site : http://murthygss.tripod.com/index.htm
and also my Sanskrit blog :

http://simplesanskrit.blogspot.com/

http://gssmurthy.blogspot.com

[Sunder Hattangadi]

An excellent review of the subject:

http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/vdesikan/rps/knight.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SriRangaSri/conversations/topics/19291


Regards,

sunder