"You, O Books, are the golden vessels of the Temple; burning lamps to be ever held in the hand." RICHARD AUNGERVYLE. PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUNGERVYLE SOCIETY, EDINBURGH. The Indian Game of Chess. F evidence be required to prove that Chess was invented by the Hindus, we may be satisfied with the testimony of the Persians; who, though as much inclined as other nations to appropriate the ingenious inventions of a foreign people, unanimously agree, that the game was imported from the west of India, together with the charming fables of Vishnusarman, in the sixth century of our æra. It seems to have been immemorially known in Hindustan by the name of Chaturanga, that is, the four angas, or members of an army, which are said in the Amaracosha to be hastyaswarat hapadatam, or elephants, horses, chariots, and footsoldiers; and in this sense the word is frequently used by epic poets in their descriptions of real armies. By a natural corruption of the pure Sanscrit word, it was changed by the old Persians into Chatrang; but the Arabs, who soon after took possession of their country, had neither the initial nor final letter of that word in their alphabet, and consequently altered it further into Shatranj, which found its way presently into the modern Persian, and at length into the dialects of India, where the true derivation of the word is known only to the learned. Thus has a very significant word in the sacred language of the Brahmans been transformed by successive changes into axedraz, scacchi, echecs, chess, and, by a whimsical concurrence of circumstances, given birth to the English word check, and even a name to the Exchequer of Great Britain. The beautiful simplicity and extreme perfection of the game, as it is commonly played in Europe and Asia, convince me that it was invented by one effort of some great genius, nct completed by gradual improvements, but formed, to use the phrase of Italian critics, by the first intention; yet of this simple game, so exquisitely contrived, and so certainly invented in India, I cannot find any account in the classical writings of the Brahmans. It is, indeed, confidently asserted, that Sanscrit books on Chess exist in this country; and, if they can be procured at Benares, they will assuredly be sent to us. At present I can only exhibit a description of a very ancient Indian game of the same kind, but more complex, and, in my opinion, more modern than the simple Chess of the Persians. This game is also called Chaturanga, but more frequently Chaturaji, or the Four Kings, since it is played by four persons, representing as many princes, two allied armies combating on each side. The description is taken from the Bhawishya Puran, in which Yudhisht hir is represented conversing with Vyasa, who explains at the King's request the form of the fictitious warfare and the principal rules of it. "Having marked eight squares on all sides," says the Sage, "place the red army to the east, the green to the south, the "yellow to the west, and the black to the north; let the elephant stand on the left of the King; next to him, the horse; then the boat; "and, before them all, four foot-soldiers; but the boat must be placed "in the angle of the board." From this passage it clearly appears that an army, with its four angas, must be placed on each side of the board, since an elephant could not stand in any other position on the left hand of each King, and Radhacant informed me, that the board consisted, like ours, of sixty-four squares, half of them occupied by the forces, and half vacant. He added, that this game is mentioned in the oldest law books, and that it was invented by the wife of Ravan, King of Lanca, in order to amuse him with an image of war, while his metropolis was closely beseiged by Rama, in the second age of the world. He had not heard the story told by Firdausi, near the close of the Shahnamah; and it was probably carried into Persia from Canyacuvja, by Borzu the favourite physician, thence called Vaidyaprya, of the great Anushiravan; but he said. that the Brahmans of Gaur, or Bengal, were once celebrated for superior skill in the game, and that his Father, together with his spiritual preceptor Jagannath, now living at Tribeni, had instructed two young Brahmans in all the rules of it, and had sent them to Jayanagar at the request of the late Raja, who had liberally rewarded them. A ship or boat is substituted, we see, in this complex game for the rath or armed chariot, which the Bengalese pronounce rot'h, and which the Persians changed into rokh, whence came the rook of some European nations, as the vierge and fol of the French are supposed to be corruptions of ferze and fil, the prime minister and elephant of the Persians and Arabs. It were in vain to seek an etymology of the word rook in the modern Persian language; for, in all the passages extracted from Firdausi, and Jami, where rokh is conceived to mean a hero or fabulous bird, it signifies, I believe, no more than a cheek or face, as in the following description of a procession in Egypt:-"When a thousand youths, like cypresses, box-trees, and "firs, with locks as fragrant, cheeks as fair, and bosoms as delicate "as lilies of the valley, were marching gracefully along, thou wouldst "have said that the new spring was turninghis face" (not as Hyde translates the words, carried on rokhs) from "station to station." And as to the battle of the duwazdeh rakh, which D'Herbelot supposes to mean douze preux chevaliers, I am strongly inclined to think that the phrase only signifies a combat of twelve persons face to facc, or six on a side. I cannot agree with my friend Radhacant, that a ship is properly introduced in this imaginary warfare instead of a chariot, in which the old Indian warriors constantly fought; for, though the king might be supposed to sit in a car, so that the four angas would be complete, and though it may often be necessary in a real campaign to pass rivers or lakes, yet no river is marked on the Indian, as it is on the Chinese chess-board; and the intermixture of ships with horses, elephants, and infantry embattled on a plain, is an absurdity not to be defended. The use of dice may, perhaps, be justified in a representation of war, in which fortune has unquestionably a great share; but it seems to exclude chess from the rank which has been assigned to it among the sciences, and to give the game before us the appearance of whist, except that pieces are used only, instead of cards, which are held concealed; nevertheless, we find that the moves in the game described by Vyasa, were to a certain degree regulated by chance; for he proceeds to tell his royal pupil, that "if cinque be "thrown, the king or a pawn must be moved; if quatre, the elephant ; "if trois, the horse; and if deux the boat. 66 He then proceeds to the moves :— "The king passes freely on all sides, but over one square only; and with the same limitation the “pawn moves, but he advances straight forward, and kills his enemy "through an eagle; the elephant marches in all directions, as far as |