This article is about the two-player ancient game

chaturanga. For the four-player version, played

with dice, see chaturaji. For other uses,
see Chaturanga (disambiguation).
a

Chaturanga starting position.[1] The Rajas do not

face each other; the white Raja starts on e1 and

the black Raja on d8.
Chaturanga (Sanskrit: ; caturaga), catur,
is an ancient Indian strategy game which is the
common ancestor of the board
games chess, shogi, makruk,xiangqi and janggi.
Chaturanga developed in the Gupta Empire,
India around the 6th century AD. In the 7th
century, it was adopted as shatranj in Sassanid
Persia, which in turn was the form of chess
brought to late-medieval Europe.
The exact rules of chaturanga are unknown.
Chess historians suppose that the game had
similar rules to those of its successor shatranj.
In particular, there is uncertainty as to the moves
of the Gaja (elephant), the precursor of the
modern chess bishop.
Contents
[hide]

1 History

2 Rules
o

2.1 Pieces and their moves

2.2 Additional rules

3 See also

4 References

5 Further reading

6 External links

This article
usesalgebraic
notation to describe
chess moves.

History[edit]

Sanskrit caturaga is a bahuvrihi compound,

meaning "having four limbs or parts" and in epic
poetry often means "army".[2] The name comes
from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian
epic Mahabharata, referring to four divisions of
an army,
namely elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry.
An ancient battle formation,Akshauhini, is like
the setup of chaturanga.
a

Ashtpada, the uncheckered 88 board, sometimes

with special markings, on which chaturanga was
played
Chaturanga was played on an 88 uncheckered
board, calledAshtpada.[3] The board sometimes had
special markings, the meaning of which is unknown
today. These marks were not related to chaturanga,
but were drawn on the board only by tradition.
Chess historian Harold Murray conjectured that the
Ashtpada was also used for some old racetype dice game, perhaps similar to Chowka bhara, in
which the marks had 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 [nayadyutair] yellow and green in colour, as if
mottled by lac, leapt up on the black field squares.
The colours 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. AD 625) contains
the earliest reference to the name chaturanga:
Under this monarch, only the bees quarrelled to
collect the dew; the only feet cut off were those of
measurements, and only from Ashtpada 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 Ashtpada is the
gameboard of 88 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.[clarification needed]
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.[4]

In Arabic, most of the terminology was carried out

directly from chaturanga: modern chess itself is
called "chitranj" in Arabic, and the bishop is called
"elephant".
Rules[edit]

initial position is as shown. White moves first. The

objective in chaturanga, the same as modern chess,
is to checkmatethe opponent's Raja (king).
The

Pieces and their moves[edit]

Raja (king) (also spelled Rajah): moves one

step in any direction (vertical, horizontal or
diagonal), the same as the king in chess. There is
no castling in chaturanga.
Mantri (minister or counsellor); also known
as Senapati (general): moves one step
diagonally in any direction, like the fers in
shatranj.
Ratha (chariot) (also spelledakata): moves the
same as a rook in chess.
Gaja (elephant) (also spelled Gajah or Hathi):
three different moves are described in ancient
literature:

 Two squares in any diagonal direction,

jumping over the first square, as the alfil in
shatranj. This is a fairy chess piece which is
a (2,2)-leaper.
The same move is used for
the boat in chaturaji, a four-player
version of chaturangam.[5]
The elephant in xiangqi has the same
move, but without jumping.
One step forward or one step in any
diagonal direction.
The same move is used for
the khon (nobleman) in makruk (Thai
chess) and the sin (elephant)
in sittuyin(Burmese chess), as well as
for the silver general in shogi.
The move was described c. 1030
by Biruni in his book India.
Two squares in any orthogonal (vertical or
horizontal) direction, jumping over the first
square.

 A piece with such a move is called a

dabbbah[6] in some chess variants. The
move was described by the Arabic
chess master al-Adli[7] c. 840 in his
(partly lost) chess work. (The Arabic
word dabbbah in former times meant a
covered siege engine for attacking
walled fortifications; today it means
"army tank".)
The German historian Johannes
Kohtz (18431918) suggests, rather,
that this was the earliest move of the
Ratha.
Ashva (horse) (also spelled Ashwa or Asva):
moves the same as a knight in chess.
Padti or Bhata (foot-soldier or infantry) (also
spelled Pedati); also known as Sainik (warrior):
moves and captures the same as a pawn in
chess, but without a double-step option on the
first move.
Additional rules
Al-Adli mentions two further differences:

Stalemate was a win for a stalemated player.

This rule appeared again in some medieval chess

variations in England c. 1600. According to some

sources, there was no stalemate, though this is
improbable.

The player that is first to bare the opponent's

king (i.e. capture all enemy pieces except the
king) wins. In shatranj this is also a win, but only if
the opponent cannot bare the player's king on his
next turn.