THE MOST ANCIENT GAME.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 277, 28 December 1914, Page 10

THE MOST ANCIENT GAME.

t ORIGIN OF CHESS.

There is probably no game played the World over that has engaged tho attentions of learned minds more than Jhe ancient and "Royal Game" of shess. There may have been more books written about other games, but none showing such erudition and research. For chess is the game of mathematical minds, tho recreation of statesmen and philosophers, or rather a mental exercise than a recreation, and its origin is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. Who originated chess, by what nation was it first played, and when? SPo these questions there can be no definite answer, but there arc shrewd surmises. Many nations, from the Babylonians to the Welsh, have been credited with the origination of the game, but most of the claims have been disproved, and the popular belief now is that the game had its beginnings in Persia. There is some trutnin the idea, for, undoubtedly, the Persians developed the game, but the probabilities are that • the Hindus were the first to create it,;.and the evidence of the old Sanskrit manuscripts bears out the contention, for they show that chess was known in India thousands of years ago. ITS,HINDU ORIGIN.

There is a legend that chess was invented in China in the reign of KaaTsu (goodness only knows how long ago that might have been) by a Mandarin named Han-Sing, who was in command of an army, and who wanted to amuse his soldiers when in winter quarters. There is another legend that it was invented by a Persian Grand Vizier to teach a young prince the art of warfare, and many others similar in idea and as apochryphal. But two things are certain—that it is of great antiquity and has originated out of the strategic art of warfare. Professor Duncan Forbes, who published a history of chess in 1860, says that the ancient four-handed game called ehatufanga, mentioned in the Saucrit manuscripts, is, the primeval form of chess, and was' invented by the Hindus, and was known and practised in India from a time so ancient that no one can guess at the origins, but can be traced back for a period of from 3000 to 4000 years before the 6th century of the Christian era. There is plenty of evidence as to the antiquity of the game, at least, and the best authorities agree that it was played in India before it was played anywhere else. It crossed into Persia and Arabia

naturally, and attained to great, popularity amongst all the learned people, n which is not remarkable when one con- ' Biders that it was the Persians and Arabs who kept alive and developed

the mathematical knowledge inherited from the Greeks. Before the Christian x era,' Persians and Arabians were* "the foremost mathematicians of the wotld. THE. SPREADING OF THE GAME. 'But that has little to do with the development of the game. We do know that it was known by the name of *■ Shatranj" amongst Persians and Arabians, and that this name, evidently derived from the Sanscrit "Chaturanga", "■ is a fqjreign word amongst both ■'.'' peoples. The Arabic name for the bishop is "Al-fie," derived from Alephind, and in the earliest representation of the game the elephant, as a most important unit of an army is shown. The bishop evidently supplanted him in Christian times. The game passed from the Hindus to the Persians, and from the Persians to the Arabians affcer the capture of Persia by the Caliphs in the seventh century, and it is ' dear that the European game has its source from the Arabic. The very

words by which the moves and some of ' the pieces are know show that deriva- . tion—take the words "check" and .•" mate,'' in the Arabic they have their counterpart in the word "Shah mat," meaning "the King is dead." There are many tales connecting the game with Charlemagne and the Merovingian kings, but none of them bear investigation. Though chess may have been known at the Court of the Empress Irene, it is unlikely that the semi-bar-baric Charlemagne or any of his southern Franks knew anything of it.

INTRODUCED TO EUROPE. Probably the first introduction of chess into Europe was made by the Arabs when they conquered Spain and the Moors held dominance over that country and gave it so much other learning, and also it is likely that Italy received the game from fhe Byzantines, whose dominions in mediaeval times extended from the Bosphorus almost to Vienna. Some think that chess was. first introduced to' Europe at the time of the Crusades, Christian warriors having learned to play it while in the East, but it is clearly shown by ecclesiastical coiv respondence that the game was known in Europe before the first Crusade. There is extant a letter written by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia in the year 1061, to Pope Alexander 11., relating to a penance imposed on a bishop whom the cardinal had found diverting himself at chess, and he repeats the language he had used to the erring bishop:—"Was it right, I say, and consistent with thy duty, to sport away thy evenings amidst the vanity of chess, and defile the hand which offers up the body of the Lord, and the tongue which mediates between God and man, with the pollution of a sacrilegious game?" But ecclesiastical authorities were not all so severe, and there was much difference between them as to whether chess was an unlawful /g'ame or not.

- CHANGES. As for the pieces in the game, they have changed in appearance somewhat but very little in individual privileges and moves.. In the ancient games the king seems to have had much the same .moves as at present, but it is said that once he could be captured, formerly he jpossessed the power to leap two, and ■even- three, squares, but his modern privilege of "castling" is a European

invention. Tho queen, who has suffered all sorts of changes in name, sex, and power, was one of the weakest pieces on the board, and in the old Arabic game sho was a fors, which signifies a counsellor, minister or general. Well, whatever the changes made by time and custom, the game still remains an exercise for keen wits when played by the higher ranges of skill, and innumerable are the commentators upon the game, those who have philosophised, invented problems, solved problems, and dealt with it'historically. One can go back to the Sanscrit for origins and to the Arabic for the root words from which the modern names of pieces and inove.s are derived, but the first important writer on European chess, was the Spaniard, Eoy Lopez de Segura, for he was the first chess analyst, aa far as Europe is concerned, and he wrote his book on the game in 1561. Eve-n in that time there were chess tournaments—for did not the two most famous players of the Italian school, Giovanni Leonardo do Cutri and Paolo Boi, go to Spain in the years 1562-1575 and defeat the most famous Spanish masters. It is still a game demanding brilliant strategical powers and when two masters sit down to a board it is like the work of two great tacticians on a battlefield, and, to the players, almost as serious.