page_title: Chovgan
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Chovgan / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Shah Mahmud. A polo game: an illustration from the poem Guy u Chawgan (the Ball and the Polo-mallet) (F1935.18, manuscript). Safavid dynasty. Color and gold on paper. H: 19.4 W: 12.3 cm. Tabriz, Iran. Purchase, F1935.19.
context_page_description: Chowgan or Chogan, known as Chowkan in the Sasanian Empire, is a sporting team game with horses originated in ancient Iran. It was considered an aristocratic game and held in a separate field, on specially trained horses. Nowadays, it is played in Azerbaijan, Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
  In 2013 UNESCO included Chovqan as an Azerbaijani cultural heritage in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of urgent safeguarding. In 2017, UNESCO inscribed Chogān as an Iranian cultural heritage in the Cultural Heritage List.
  Chowgan was a Persian national sport played extensively by the nobility. Women played as well as men. During the period of the Parthian Empire, the sport had great patronage under the kings and noblemen. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, polo, was a Persian ball game and an important pastime in the court of the Sasanian Empire. It was also part of royal education for the Sasanian ruling class. Emperor Shapur II learnt to play polo when he was seven years old in 316 AD. Known as chowgan it is still played in the region today.
context_section_description: The origins of the game of polo are obscure, being claimed by Iran, China, India and others. Some authors give dates as
  early as the 5th century BC (or earlier) to the 1st century AD for its origin by the Medes. Certainly, the earliest records of polo are Median (an ancient Iranian people). According to the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, polo i.e. chovgan was a Persian ball game (polo = chovgan in Middle Persian) and an important pastime in the court of the Sasanian Empire (224-651). Chovgan / polo was also part of royal education for the Sasanian ruling class. The neighboring Romans adopted chovgan from the Sasanians and called it tzykanion, which derives from the Middle Persian word. During the reign of Theodosius II, the Roman imperial court started playing tzykanion in the tzykanisterion (polo stadium). By the time of the Tang dynasty (618–907), records of polo were well-established in China. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, the popularity of polo in Tang China was "bolstered, no doubt, by the presence of the Sasanian court in exile".
  Polo was at first a training game for cavalry units, usually the king's guard or other elite troops. In time polo became an Iranian national sport played normally by the nobility. Women as well as men played the game, as indicated by references to the queen and her ladies engaging King Khosrow II Parviz and his courtiers in the 6th century AD. Certainly Persian literature and art give us the richest accounts of polo in antiquity. Ferdowsi, the famed Iranian poet-historian, gives a number of accounts of royal chogan tournaments in his 9th century epic, Shahnameh (the Book of Kings). In the earliest account, Ferdowsi romanticizes an international match between Turanian force and the followers of Siyâvash, a legendary Iranian prince from the earliest centuries of the Empire; the poet is eloquent in his praise of Siyâvash's skills on the polo field. Ferdowsi also tells of Emperor Shapur II of the Sasanian dynasty of the 4th century who learned to play polo when he was only seven years old. Naqsh-i Jahan Square in Isfahan is in fact a polo field which was built by king Abbas I in the 17th century.
  Sultan Qutb-ud-din Aybak, the Turkic military slave from present-day Northern Afghanistan who then became Emperor of North India, ruled as an emperor for only four years, from 1206 to 1210 but died accidentally in 1210 playing polo. While he was playing a game of polo on horseback, his horse fell and Aibak was impaled on the pommel of his saddle. He was buried near the Anarkali bazaar in Lahore (which is now in Pakistan). Aibak's son Aram, died in 1211 CE [2], so Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, another military slave of Turkic ancestry who was married to Aibak's daughter, succeeded him as Sultan of Delhi.
  From Persia, polo spread to the Byzantines (who called it tzykanion), and after the Muslim conquests to the Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties of Egypt and the Levant, whose elites favoured it above all other sports. Notable sultans such as Saladin and Baybars were known to play it and encourage it in their court. Polo sticks were features on the Mameluke precursor to modern day playing cards.
  Later on Polo was passed from Persia to other parts of Asia including the Indian subcontinent and China, where it was very popular during the Tang Dynasty and frequently depicted in paintings and statues. Valuable for training cavalry, the game was played from Constantinople to Japan by the Middle Ages. It is known in the East as the Game of Kings. The name polo is said to have been derived from the Tibetan word "pulu", meaning ball.
caption: A Persian miniature from the poem Guy-o Chawgân ("the Ball and the Polo-mallet") during Safavid dynasty of Persia, which shows courtiers on horseback playing a game of polo, 1546 AD
exif: {}