Variation on Black's 7th move.

ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS.

BY SIR WILLIAM JONES.

IF 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 of Chess was imported from the West of India, together with the charming Fables of VISHNUSARMAN, in the sixth century of our era: it seems to have been immemorially known in Hindustan by the name of Chaturanga, that is, the four anga's or members of an army, which are said, in the Amaracósha, to be hastyáswarat'hapádátam, or elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers; 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 farther 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 name 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 Axedres, 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; not 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, but 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 Chaturájì, or the four Kings, since it is played by four persons, representing as many Princes, two allied armies combatting on each side; the description is taken from the Bhawishya Purán, in which YUDHISHT'HIR is represented conversing with VYA'SA, 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 Anga's, 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 Ra'dHA'CA'NT 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 Ra'van, King of Lanca, in order to amuse him with an image of war, while his city was closely besieged by RA'MA, 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 Cányacuvja by BORZU, the favourite physician, thence called Vaidyapriya, of the great ANU'SHIRAVA'N; but he said that the Bráhmans 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 Bráhmans in all the rules of it, and had sent them to Jayanagar, at the request of the late Rájà, who had liberally rewarded them. A ship or boat is substituted, we see, in this complex game, for the rat'h, 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 ferz and fil, the prime minister and elephant, of the Persians and Arabs: it were vain to seek an etymology of the word rook in the modern Persian language; for in all the passages extracted from FIRDAUSI and JA'MI, where rokh is conceived to mean a hero or a fabulous bird, it signifies, I believe, no more than a cheek or a face; as in the following description of a procession in Egypt :- 'When a thousand youths, like cypresses, boxtrees, 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 turning his face, (not, as HYDE translates the words, carried on rokhs), from station to station;" and, as to the battle of the duwázdeh rokh, which D'HERBELOT supposes to mean douce preux chevaliers, I am strongly inclined to think that the phrase only signifies a combat of twelve persons face to face, or six of a side. I cannot agree with my friend Rad'Ha'caʼNT, 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 anga's 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.

(To be concluded in our next.)

* We have been favoured with the three following games, just played between M. St. Amant, who made a brief sojourn here last week, and two strong Metro