The Origin of Go, lecture
frank...@aol.com
Abstract
This talk examines early traditions about the origins of Go and the puzzles that still surround its beginnings. Ancient legends link the game to Emperor Yao and raise the question of whether Go was first created for astronomy, mathematics, or divination. References to “mystic numbers” suggest that it may once have served as more than a pastime.
Archaeological and textual evidence shows that early Go boards often had 17×17 grids. These appear in Chinese sources up to the sixth century, and Tibet also preserved 17×17 boards, although their rules differed. By the seventh century, however, this format disappears and the 19×19 grid becomes standard—a transition that remains unexplained.
The changing number of star points on Go boards adds another puzzle: five in early China, thirteen in Tibet, seventeen in Korea, and nine in Japan. What motivated these shifts, and what do they reveal about the game’s original purpose? This talk explores these enduring questions.
When: Tuesday December 9, 2025, 11:00-12:00
Where: online; Zoom link here: https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/68564259061
For more information, please see the event page: https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/event/origin-game-go
Asia is home to some of best known and longest surviving board games in the world. Backgammon originated in West Asia, Chess in South Asia, and Go in East Asia. The list goes on and can be expanded to include hundreds, if not thousands, of games that most people have never even heard of. Yet the history of their transmission, translocation, and transcreation across the Asian continent remains little explored and poorly understood. This owes in part to obvious barriers of culture and language, but also to a lack of communication between board game scholars. Even a cursory glance at the sources – whether textual, visual, material, or ethnographic – shows that they speak a common language that we as researchers do not.
The 2025 ASTRA COLLOQUIUM series, entitled "The Ludic Languages of Asia: Sources and Terminologies", brings together board game scholars working with primary sources in a variety of Asian languages. It asks them to present their sources and discuss questions of context, structure, content, and language use. The goal is not only to establish connections between specific games and game cultures, but also between researchers and methodologies. The series is rooted in a larger project to build a database of ludic terminologies across linguistic glossaries in Asia.