Chaturanga - History

History

Sanskrit caturaṅga is a bahuvrihi compound, meaning "having four limbs or parts" and in epic poetry often means "army". The name itself comes from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata, referring to four divisions of an army, viz. elephants, chariots, cavalry, and infantry.

Chaturanga was played on an 8x8 uncheckered board, called Ashtāpada. The board had some special marks, the meaning of which is unknown today. These marks were not related to chaturanga, but were drawn on the board only by tradition. The great chess historian Murray has conjectured that the Ashtāpada was also used for some old race type dice game, perhaps similar to Chowka bhara, in which these marks had a meaning.

An early reference to an ancient Indian board game is sometimes attributed to Subandhu in his Vasavadatta (c. AD 450):

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

The colors are not those of the two camps, but mean that the frogs have a two-tone dress, yellow and green.

Banabhatta's Harsha Charitha (c. 625) contains the earliest reference to the name 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 was no cutting-off of the four limbs of condemned criminals....

While 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.

The game was first introduced to the West in Thomas Hyde's De ludis orientalibus libri duo, published in 1694. Subsequently, translations of Sanskrit accounts of the game were published by Sir William Jones.