Reflections: Chess – An Asian Game Well Played

One of the first gaming pieces – a war

elephant (bishop) resting on its knees,

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References to the term caturanga as the four wings of the army go back to before 300 BC

King Sarvavarman Maukhari from Kanauj in India sent the game to the Persian king Chosrow I Anushirvan. This model used pieces made of ruby and emerald

The Harshacarita is one of the earliest allusions to the game of caturanga in India, played on a planogram using terracotta figures

Chess spread across the Islamic world from Persia. The Persian exclamation “Shah Mat!” (literally, “the king is helpless”), led to the phrase “checkmate”

The first written reference to Chinese chess (xiangqi) appeared in the Book of Marvels. The pieces are placed on the intersection of the lines of the board

The Arabs introduced the game to Western Europe in the ninth century

Muslims carried chess to North Africa, Sicily and Iberia. Chess reached Russia from Byzantium and via the Vikings

Ferdowsi, a renowned Persian poet, describes in the Shahnameh an Indian king who reenacted past battles on a chessboard

Around 1262, the Russian word for chess, shakhmaty, was introduced

Shogi was spawned when xiangqi was brought to Japan between the 10th and 12th centuries. The present form of shogi was played from the 16th century

The first modern chess tournament was held in London