caturanga

Chaturanga

The Sanskrit name Chaturanga means 'quadripartite' (divided into four parts) and was also used to describe the Indian army of Vedic times in which a platoon had four parts: one elephant, one chariot, three soldiers on horseback, and five foot-soldiers. The board was known as the 'ashtapada' (eight-square) and is believed to have been adopted from an older race game related to parcheesi.

The date of the game's origin is uncertain, but documentary evidence exists from c. AD 620 in the form of a Sanskrit document, Vasavadatta from Subhandu which describes what could be chess pieces. Another document, dated from between 750 AD and 850 AD is Chatrang-namak by Pahlavi which describes the arrival of Chatranga to the court of Persia with an Indian embassy. The authenticity of the latter account is doubted by some.

The pieces were raja (king), mantri (counsellor, ancestor of the ferz), gaja (elephant, later called fil), asva (horse), ratha (chariot, later called rook), and pedati (infantry or pawns).

(
Sources:

The Oxford Companion to Chess (second edition), David Hooper, Kenneth Whyld

The Oxford History of Board Games, David Parlett

The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, D. B. Pritchard)


Scientists [=? ed. note: surely not] generally assume that Chaturanga, played in India, in or before the 7th century after Christ, is the oldest known form of chess. Resemblances, both with the current chess, and with Chinese chess are remarkable. The rules below are after Murray and Gollon.
Opening setup

The game is played on an uncheckered board of eight by eight squares.



White
King e1; Counsellor d1; Rook a1, h1; Knight b1, g1; Elephant c1, f1; Pawns a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2.

Black
King d8; Counsellor e8; Rook a8, h8; Knight b8, g8; Elephant c8, f8; Pawns a7, b7, c7, d7, e7, f7, g7, h7.
Moves of pieces

The king moves as usual king, but additionally has the right to make one knight-move during the game, provided that he hasn't been checked before he makes his knight-move. Castling doesn't exist.

The counsellor moves one square diagonally.

The elephant moves two squares diagonally, but may jump the intervening square.

The knight moves as a usual knight.

The rook or chariot moves as usual rook.

The pawn or soldier moves and takes as a usual pawn, but may not make a double step on its first move.
Promotion

Pawns can promote when they arrive at the last rank of the board, but only to the type of piece that was on the promotion-square in the opening setup, e.g., a white pawn that moves to b8 can only promote to a knight. Additionally, promotion is only possible when the player already lost a piece of the type, so the pawn moving to b8 will only promote to a knight, when the white player already lost a knight during the game. A consequence is that pawns never promote on e1 or d8.
Mate and stalemate

Object of the game is to mate the opponents king. The player that stalemates its opponent loses the game.

(Additional notes:

An early reference to a chess-like game is sometimes attributed to Subandhu in his Vasavadatta (c. 600):

The time of the rains played its game with frogs for chessmen which yellow and green in color, as if mottled by lac, leapt up on the black field squares.

The word translated as chessmen, nayadyutair, is not specific to the Chess and can indicate the pieces of any boardgames. The colors are not those of the two camps, but mean that the frogs have a two-tone dress, yellow and green. Note that the chess-boards used by the Indians were unicoloured.

Banabhatta's Harsha Charitha (c. 625) contains the earliest reference to Chaturanga:

Under this monarch, only the bees quarreled to collect the dew; the only feet cut off were those of measurements, and only from Ashtâpada one could learn how to draw up a Chaturanga, there were no cutting off the four limbs of condemned criminals....

If there is little doubt that Ashtâpada is the gaming-board of 8x8 squares, the double meaning of Chaturanga, as the four folded army, may be controversial. There is a probability that the ancestor of Chess was mentioned there.)

c. 1030 - Al-Biruni's India describes the game of Chaturaji.

1148 - Kalhana's Rajatarangini (translated by MA Stein, 1900)

The King, though he had taken two kings (Lothana and Vigraharaja) was helpless and perplexed about the attack on the remaining one, just as a player of chess (who has taken two Kings and is perplexed about taking a third).
(Note: This refers to the game of Chaturaji.)