Ricardo Calvo, (Madrid), 1996
Fact 1:
Indian literature has no early mentions of chess but Persian literature
does. The first unmistakable reference in Sanskrit writings is in the
"Harschascharita" by the court poet Bana, written between 625
and 640. On the other hand, pre-islamic documents have solidly connected
chess with the last period of the Sassanid rulers in Persia (VI-VII
century). The "Kamamak", an epical treatise about the founder
of this dinasty, mentions the game of chatrang as one of the
accomplishments of the legendary hero. It has a proving force that a
game under this name was popular in the period of redaction of the text,
supposedly the end of the 6th century or the beginning of the 7th.
Closedly related is a shorter poem from about the same period entitled
in Pahlevi "Chatrang-namak", dealing with the introduction of
chess in Persia. Firdawsi wrote also about it in the 11th century, but
his sources are solid and form a continuous chain of witnesses going
back to the middle of the 6th. century in Persia.
Fact 2
: India has no early chess pieces but Persia does. The presence of
carved chess men in Persian domains contrasts with the absence of such
items in India. There are no chess men there from early times, and only
in the 10th century appears an indirect mention from al-Masudi:
"The use of ivory (in India) is mainly directed to the carving of
chess- and nard pieces". Some experts believe that old Indian chess
pieces may be discovered one day. So far, this is mere speculation. The
three oldest sets of chess pieces closely identified as such belong to
Persian domains, not to India. The most important are the Afrasiab
pieces. They were found 1977 in Afrasiab, near Samarkanda, and have been
dated by its Russian discoverers as early as the 7th-8th century.
Western experts accept at least the year 761 because a coin so dated
belongs to the same layer. This seven ivory men, questionable as all
"idols" may be, are Persian, even if the territory was under
Islamic rule since 712. Next group of chess pieces, (three chessmen)
comes also from the Persian area. The so-called Fergana pieces include a
"Rukh" in form of a geant bird, and its antiquity should be
not too distant from the Afrasiab lot. In the Persian city of Nishapur
another ivory set was discovered though belonging to later times, 9th or
10th century. These are not idols anymore and are carved following the
abstract pattern which has been characterized as "arabic".
Fact 3
: The Arabs introduced chess in India after taking "Shatrang"
from Persia. Games upon the "ashtapada" board of 8x8,
with dice and with two or more players may have served as "protochess",
but the two types of games already differ too strongly in their nature
and philosophy to make the evolution of "Chaturanga" into
"Shatransh" a simple question of direct parantage via the
Persian "Chatrang". Arab writers stated quite frequently that
they took the game of "shatransh" from the Persians, who
called it "chatrang". This happens in the middle of a
political-cultural revolution, which has been analyzed in historical
texts. The ruling Ummayad dinasty was thrown out after a fierce civil
war by a certain Abul Abbas, who initiated a new era, founding Bagdad
around the year 750 and translating there from Damascus the Islamic
political center. The Abbasid dinasty was ethnically and culturally of
Persian origin. So Persian influences became clearly dominant in the
cultural renaissance which took place inside the Arabic trunk. A lot of
the previous knowledge from classical Greece, Byzantium, early Egyptian
and Middle East civilizations and even "from the country of
Hind" was compiled and re-translated into Arabic and absorbed in a
scientific body which followed its further path towards the West. Chess
was only a part of this knowledge, packaged together with earlier
mathematical, astronomical, philosophical or medical achievements.
Fact 4
: Etymology is unclear. The roots of several chess terms may go further
to India, but the fact is that the Sanscrit word "Chaturanga"
means only "army", and it is unclear whether it refered to our
chess, to a possible form of "protochess" with four players,
or to some strategical exercise with pieces over a board with military
purposes. In any case, to be on safer ground, we must remember the
earliest solid evidences about the board game called chess belong to
Persia. The Pahlevi word "Chatrang" means, even to- day, the
mandrake plant, which has a root in form of a human figure. So, there is
a good case in favour of a different ethymological interpretation: Any
game played with pieces representing figures may be compared with the
"shatrang" plant.
Another hint
is the nomenclature of the pieces, persistently related to different
sorts of animals rather than to components of an army: In the
"Grande Acedrex" of King Alfonso of Castile (1283) lions,
crocodiles, giraffes etc. play over a board of 12x12 cases with peculiar
jumping moves, and the invention of it is connected to the same remote
period in India as normal chess. They are very atypical in any context
referring to India. (See the reference "Hasb"(War) in
"The Encyclopaedia of Islam", De Gruyter, Leyden-New York
1967). On the other hand, elephants are not at all exclusive from Indian
origin (Sir William Gowers, "African Elephants and Ancient
Authors", African Affairs, 47 (1948) p.173 ff. Also Frank W.
Walbank, "Die Hellenistische Welt", DTV 1983 p. 205-6), not
even in military campaigns: The Persian army had also cavalry,
foot-soldiers, charriots and elephants as well as river ships. In Egypt,
the Ptolemaic Kings obtained elephants regularly from Somalia. Strabo
(16,4,5) mentions the foundation of several cities in Africa with the
main purpose of hunting elephants. The hunters have even written
dedications to Ptolemaios IV Philopator (221-204 BC). Polybios describes
a battle with elephants between Ptolomaios IV and Antiochos III in 217
BC. Pyrrhus and Hannibal used it in the West. Modern research has
confirmed all the details.
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