Undertaking such a pioneering task, the scope of which has never been attempted before or since, Murray taught himself to read Arabic in order to decipher historical manuscripts on the game and its beginnings. His study unravels the history of the game as it evolved from its Asiatic beginnings, through the role chess played in Europe during the Middle Ages, and up until the nineteenth century with the arrival of modern chess as we know it.
A History of Chess includes transcribed diagrams of important games, as well as some of the more famous historical chess figurines, such as the Lewis chessmen. No single work on the game of chess has become close to touching Murray’s in breadth or significance.
Undertaking such a pioneering task, the scope of which has never been attempted before or since, Murray taught himself to read Arabic in order to decipher historical manuscripts on the game and its beginnings. His study unravels the history of the game as it evolved from its Asiatic beginnings, through the role chess played in Europe during the Middle Ages, and up until the nineteenth century with the arrival of modern chess as we know it.
A History of Chess includes transcribed diagrams of important games, as well as some of the more famous historical chess figurines, such as the Lewis chessmen. No single work on the game of chess has become close to touching Murray’s in breadth or significance.
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Undertaking such a pioneering task, the scope of which has never been attempted before or since, Murray taught himself to read Arabic in order to decipher historical manuscripts on the game and its beginnings. His study unravels the history of the game as it evolved from its Asiatic beginnings, through the role chess played in Europe during the Middle Ages, and up until the nineteenth century with the arrival of modern chess as we know it.
A History of Chess includes transcribed diagrams of important games, as well as some of the more famous historical chess figurines, such as the Lewis chessmen. No single work on the game of chess has become close to touching Murray’s in breadth or significance.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781632207708 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse |
| Publication date: | 05/19/2015 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 912 |
| File size: | 108 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
PART I. CHESS IN ASIA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
European chess of Indian ancestry. — Asiatic games of similar ancestry. — Classification of Board-games. — Indian Board-games. — The Ashapada. — Speculations on the nature of the original Indian chess. — Previous theories as to the ancestry of the game.
HISTORICALLY chess must be classed as a game of war. Two players direct a conflict between two armies of equal strength upon a field of battle, circumscribed in extent, and offering no advantage of ground to either side. The players have no assistance other than that afforded by their own reasoning faculties, and the victory usually falls to the one whose strategical imagination is the greater, whose direction of his forces is the more skilful, whose ability to foresee positions is the more developed.
To-day, chess as we know it is played by every Western people, and in every land to which Western civilization or colonization has extended. The game possesses a literature which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined. Its idioms and technicalities have passed into the ordinary language of everyday life. The principles and possibilities of the game have been studied for four centuries, and the serious student of chess starts now with the advantage of a rich inheritance of recorded wisdom and experience. Master-play reaches a high standard, and has rightly earned a reputation for difficulty. This reputation has often been extended to the game itself, and has deterred many from learning it. Moreover, Western civilization has evolved other games, and teems with other interests for leisure moments, so that chess to-day can only be regarded as the game of the minority of the Western world. In the Middle Ages chess was far more widely played, and the precedence among indoor games that is still accorded by courtesy to it is a survival from the period when chess was the most popular game of the leisured classes of Europe.
The ancestry of this European chess can easily be established. A number of the mediaeval European chess terms can be traced back by way of Arabic to Middle Persian. Thus we have
Eur. ferz = Ar. firz, Firzan = Per. farzin
Eur. alfil = Ar. (al) fil = Per. pil
Eur. roc = Ar. rukhkh3 = Per. rukh.
Eur. scac, check! = Ar. shah = Per. shah.
Eur. mat, mate! = Ar. mat = Per. mat.
The name of the game in most of the European languages, e.g. Eng. chess, Fr. échecs, It. scacchi, can be traced back, through the Latin plural scaci (scachi, scacci, meaning chessmen), to the Arabic and Persian name of the chess King, shah.
The names of the other chessmen — King and Pawn (L. pedo, a foot-soldier), everywhere; Horse, in Southern Europe — reproduce the meaning of the names of the corresponding men in the Arabic and Persian games.
The names of the game of chess in modern Spanish or Castilian (ajedrez) and Portuguese (xadrez) not only confirm this evidence, but supplement it by taking the pedigree a step farther back. For these two forms appear in older Castilian as acedrex, and this word is simply the Arabic ash-shatranj, the shatranj, in a European dress. Shatranj, again, is only an Arabicized form of the Middle Persian chatrang, and this Persian word is an adaptation of the Sanskrit chaturanga. All these terms are in their respective languages the ordinary names for the game of chess.
The names of the chessmen in Persian and Sanskrit are synonymous. In each game there was a King, a Counsellor, two Elephants, two Horse, two Chariots, and eight Foot-soldiers.
This philological evidence derives some support from the documentary evidence. The earliest works which make mention of chess date from about the beginning of the 7th century A.D., and are associated with N.W. India, Persia, and Islam. It is difficult to assign exact dates, but the oldest of a number of nearly contemporary references is generally assumed to be a mention of chess in a Middle Persian romance — the Karnamak — which is ascribed with some hesitation to the reign of Khusraw II Parwiz, the Sasanian king of Persia, 590 — 628 A.D. The others belong to N.W. India.
It is interesting to note that early Persian and Arabic tradition is unanimous in ascribing the game of chess to India. The details naturally vary in different works, and the names in the tradition are manifestly apocryphal. Chess is usually associated with the decimal numerals as an Indian invention, and its introduction into Persia is persistently connected with the introduction of the book Kalila wa Dimna (the Fables of Pilpay) in the reign of the Sasanian monarch Khusraw I Nushirwan, 531 — 78 A.D., and European scholars of Sanskrit and Persian generally accept the traditional date of the introduction of this book as established. The so-called Arabic numerals are well known to be really Indian.
Finally, a comparison of the arrangement and method of the European game of the 11th to 13th centuries A.D. with the Indian game as existing to-day and as described in the earlier records supports the same conclusion. In both games the major pieces occupy opposite edges of the board of 8 x — 8 squares, and the Foot-soldiers are arranged on the row in front of the major pieces. The corner squares (a1, a8, h1, h8) are occupied by the Chariol with identical move in most of the games; the next squares (b1, b8, g1, g8) by the Horse with the well-known move of the Knight; the third squares from the corners (c1, c8, f1, f8) by the Elephant; and the two central squares (e1, e8, d1, d8) by the King and Counsellor respectively with moves that were for long the same in India, Persia, Islam, and Europe. The move of the Foot-soldiers, arranged on the 2nd and 7th rows, was also for long the same in the chess of all these countries.
We must accordingly conclude that our European chess is a direct descendant of an Indian game played in the 7th century with substantially the same arrangement and method as in Europe five centuries later, the game having been adopted first by the Persians, then handed on by the Persians to the Muslim world, and finally borrowed from Islam by Christian Europe.
Games of a similar nature exist to-day in other parts of Asia than India. The Burmese sittuyin, the Siamese makruk, the Annamese chhôeu trâng, the Malay chator, the Tibetan chandaraki, the Mongol shatara, the Chinese siang &hgrave;i, the Corean tjyang keui, and the Japanese sho-gi, are all war-games exhibiting the same great diversity of piece which is the most distinctive feature of chess.
There is naturally far less direct evidence respecting the ancestry of these games than in the case of European chess, but there can be no doubt that all these games are equally descended from the same original Indian game. The names sittuyin (Burmese), chhôeu trâng (Annamese), and chandaraki (Tibetan) certainly, and the names chator (Malay) and shatara (Mongol) probably, reproduce the Sanskrit chaturanga. The names of some of the pieces in the Malay, the Burmese, and probably the Siamese games, have been borrowed from the Sanskrit.
If we examine the nomenclature of these games we also find the same meanings recurring throughout. Thus we have —
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The Malay, Tibetan, and Mongol games are played on a board of 8 x 8 squares, and the initial arrangement of the pieces corresponds closely to the Indian game. The three games of Further India are played on a board of the same size, but the arrangement of the pieces differs from that of the Indian game. The moves of the chessmen are consistent with an Indian ancestry.
The relationship of the Chinese, Corean, and Japanese games is not so obvious. The first two are played on the lines, and not on the squares, of a board of 8 x 8 squares with a space between the 4th and 5th rows which virtually makes the board one of 8 x 9 squares; the third is played on the squares of a board of 9 x 9 squares. There is, however, no doubt that both the Corean and the Japanese games are derivatives of an older form of the Chinese game. Chinese works refer to the introduction of modifications in their game after 1279. These games introduce new pieces, but the salient fact remains that the Chariot with the move of the Rook (modified in Japan) occupies the corner squares (a1, &c.), and the Horse with the characteristic move of the Knight (slightly modified) occupies the adjoining squares (b1, &c.). This coincidence is too striking to be dismissed as merely accidental. Moreover, it is well known that other Chinese games are of Indian origin.
We may contrast the position of these games in Asia with that of chess in Europe. If we except Japan, there are only the beginnings of a literature. Each generation accordingly has to start again from the commencement and to evolve its own science of the game. The standard of play remains of necessity low, and there is nothing to deter any one from learning to play. The game has few rivals with which it must compete for popular favour, and it has had no difficulty in most places in retaining the first place. Thus the majority of Asiatics are chess-players, and chess may without exaggeration be described as the national game of Asia.
It is in the wider sense, in which I have just used the word, that I propose to use chess in this book. I include under it all the games which I trace back to the Indian chaturanga, and all the freak modifications that have been attempted from time to time. The first part of this history is devoted to a record of the Asiatic varieties of chess, and the evidence rapidly summarized above will be developed at greater length in the sequel. The broad lines of the diffusion of chess from India are fairly clear. Its earliest advance was probably westwards to Persia; the eastward advance appears to have been rather later, and at least three lines of advance may be traced. One route took the game by Kashmīr to China, Corea, and Japan. A second, possibly the same route by which Buddhism travelled, took chess to Further India. At a later date chess spread from the S.E. coast of India to the Malays. The route by which the game reached Tibet and the Northern tribes of Asia is still doubtful. Persia had meanwhile passed on chess to the Eastern Roman Empire, and, as a result of the Muhammadan conquest of Persia, Islam learnt the game. Henceforward the Muslims became the great pioneers of chess, carrying their game as far west as Spain, and east to India where they imposed the Arabic nomenclature on the Northern and Central Provinces of the Peninsula. Christian Europe had begun to learn chess from the Moors as early as 1000 A.D. From the Mediterranean shores it spread northwards over France and Germany to Britain, to the Scandinavian lands, and Iceland.
In its outward furniture chess is only one of many games which require a specially arranged surface for play. Games of this type are conveniently grouped under the generic name of Board-games, Ger. Brettspiele, although, as Groos has pointed out, the name is not a very fortunate one, since the surface of play is not always a board. Board-games are not only of very wide distribution to-day, but are also of great antiquity. They are by no means confined to the more civilized races: with the exception of the native tribes of Australia and New Guinea, practically every known people has its game or games of this type. It has also been remarked that the difficulty of a board-game is no criterion of the development of the race playing it, for some of the most involved and complicated varieties known are played by tribes that stand lowest in the scale of civilization. Board-games were played by the early inhabitants of Egypt; boards and pieces have been found in tombs even as old as the pre-dynastic period (a. 4000 B.C.), they are depicted in paintings in tombs of the Fifth Dynasty (3600 — 3400 B.C.), and the masons who built the temple at Kurna (1400 — 1333 B.C.) cut boards on slabs which were afterwards built into the roof of the temple. Boards, apparently for games, have been found in prehistoric ruins in Palestine. Board-games are mentioned in the earliest Buddhist literature of India, and in early Chinese works. They were played in classical times in Greece and Rome, by the Celts in Ireland and Wales before the Norman Conquest of England, by the Norse vikings before they began to harry the coasts of England and France, and by the native tribes of America before the time of Columbus.
All known board-games, greatly as they vary in arrangement and method of play, appear to fall into one or other of three well-defined groups:
(1) Race games, in which the men are moved along a definite track. The typical European example is the game of Backgammon (tables, nard).
(2) Hunt or Siege games, in which one side endeavours to block or confine the adversary. The typical European example is the game of Fox and Geese.
(3) War games, in which the capture of prisoners plays a considerable part. The typical European example is the game of Chess.
This classification is convenient, but it must not be pushed too far. In particular, it must not be assumed without further inquiry that it involves any necessary connexion between the individual games of different groups, or even of a single group. However tempting it may be to assume a common ancestry for board-games, it is clear from a closer examination of the various methods of play that the majority have arisen independently, and that only in the case of a small minority in any class is there any evidence of a common origin. The sameness of type which is the foundation of the above classification is at most due to the fact that the games are 'based upon certain fundamental conceptions of the universe' (Culin, Korean Games), but more probably, in my opinion, to the universality of the activities which the games symbolize. Identity of origin can only be established by the evidence of reliable historical documents, by the linguistic evidence derived from the nomenclature of the games, or by the fact that these show so great an identity of feature that the chances of independent invention are mathematically infinitesimal.
The existing games which I include under the name of chess form one of the few groups of games whose common ancestry can be established in this way. It will obviously be far more difficult to carry the pedigree farther back, and to discover the origin or relationships of the parent Indian chaturanga, a game already in existence in the 7th century of our era, in still older games. We shall first have to ascertain what board-games were in existence in India at that remote period, and to attempt to elucidate their nature.
Unfortunately, the general characteristics of early Indian literature are not very favourable for such an inquiry. The earlier Sanskrit literature of the Vedic age, and also of the later centuries when the Brahmanas and Sutras came into existence, was religious in tone and almost entirely poetical in form, and references to games must be exceptional. The later Sanskrit literature gradually extended its field to include secular subjects in general, but as it widened its field the defects of its literary style became more pronounced, and the conceits of the poetry and the extraordinarily condensed character of the prose deprive the allusions of definiteness, and leave too much to depend on the view of the commentator or the personal fancy of the translator. Our knowledge of the older Indian games is thus very vague, and based only upon the comparison of passages, all more or less obscure.
But we do know that board-games were in existence in N.W. India and the Ganges valley considerably before the commencement of the Christian era. We know this from the occurrence in Sanskrit works of words which are used as the names of boards or surfaces upon which games were played. The commonest of these words is phalaka, but this is simply a generic term for a game-board and conveys no information as regards shape, size, or arrangement. There are next the terms used in connexion with the simplest forms of dice-play, in which everything turns upon the result of throwing the dice and nothing in the nature of a game with pieces is required. Obviously, all that is necessary in this case is a level surface upon which the dice may fall, and Lüders (Das Würfelspiel im alten Indien, Berlin, 1907, 11 — 15) has shown that adhidevana (used in the Atharva Veda, and usually translated dice-board) meant simply a smooth flat surface excavated in the ground for this purpose. Of more importance for our present purpose is a group of terms which are restricted to boards of definite shape and arrangement. There are two words of this kind: ashtapada, meaning a square board of 64 squares, 8 rows of 8 squares, and dasapada, meaning a similar board of 100 squares, 10 rows of 10 squares. These boards were employed for a more complicated form of game in which the use of the dice was combined with a game upon a board (Lüders, op. cit., 65). Both terms appear to have been used also for the games played upon these boards.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
PART I. CHESS IN ASIA,
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY,
CHAPTER II. CHESS IN INDIA. I,
CHAPTER III. CHESS IN INDIA. II,
CHAPTER IV. CHESS IN INDIA. III,
CHAPTER V. CHESS IN THE MALAY LANDS,
CHAPTER VI. CHESS IN FURTHER INDIA,
CHAPTER VII. CHESS IN CHINA, COREA, AND JAPAN,
CHAPTER VIII. CHESS IN PERSIA UNDER THE SASANIANS,
CHAPTER IX. CHESS IN THE EASTERN EMPIRE,
CHAPTER X. THE ARABIC AND PERSIAN LITERATURE OF CHESS,
CHAPTER XI. CHESS UNDER ISLAM,
CHAPTER XII. THE INVENTION OF CHESS IN MUSLIM LEGEND,
CHAPTER XIII. THE GAME OF SHA?RANJ: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. I,
CHAPTER XIV. THE GAME OF SHA?RANJ: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. II,
CHAPTER XV. THE GAME OF SHA?RANJ: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. III,
CHAPTER XVI. GAMES DERIVED FROM MUSLIM AND INDIAN CHESS,
CHAPTER XVII. THE MODERN GAMES OF ISLAM,
CHAPTER XVIII. CHESS IN CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ASIA, AND IN RUSSIA,
PART II. CHESS IN EUROPE,
CHAPTER I. CHESS IN WESTERN CHRISTENDOM: ITS ORIGIN AND BEGINNINGS,
CHAPTER II. CHESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES,
CHAPTER III. THE MEDIAEVAL GAME,
CHAPTER IV. THE EARLY DIDACTIC LITERATURE,
CHAPTER V. THE MORALITIES,
CHAPTER VI. THE MEDIAEVAL PROBLEM. I,
CHAPTER VII. THE MEDIAEVAL PROBLEM. II,
CHAPTER VIII. THE MEDIAEVAL PROBLEM. III,
CHAPTER IX. CHESS IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE,
CHAPTER X. CHESSBOARDS AND CHESSMEN,
CHAPTER XI. THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN CHESS,
CHAPTER XII. FROM LOPEZ TO GRECO,
CHAPTER XIII. FROM GRECO TO STAMMA,
CHAPTER XIV. PHILIDOR AND THE MODENESE MASTERS,
CHAPTER XV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY,