Talk:History of chess/Archive 1

message: The main arguement used in this article to suggest that chess originated from India, is weak. The words used today in modern chess to describe the pieces and some moves mostly come from Iran. I reccomend you either have this part removed if you wish to continue with the notion that chess originated from india, or correctly state the origins of the names given to pieces.
Such words include, terms like check mate mate comes from the Persian Maat, which is old persian for something on the lines of - "out of options" or "Nothing to do". This is one example of the origins of terms used in modern day chess. 
Elephants were also used in ancient persia, The word Rook, also originates from persia, coming from the old persian word of Rookh.
last time i checked this article, it said that chess originated from iran, how come it keeps on changing. On both sides of the story there is not enough evidence. All we can agree upon, is that chess originated in either the Aryan states of iran or india. And this in my opinion should be the final conclusion to chess's origins in the article.
give evidence! we do not want, "it is beleived to be" give evidences from the sanskrit or the avesta, if not the article should be neurtral. 
also i like to point out that the oldest ever Chess Board discovered was Persian. (you can obviously see where my stance is)
Neverthelss if their is not enough evidence or facts, in my opinion the article should be neutral.
: Please sign your edits. And what do you mean give evidence frtom the Sanskrit? Sanskrit is a language... Pubuman 03:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Persian Origins 

message: Considering that Xiàngqí (or Chinese chess or elephant chess) evolved from an ancient Chinese game called Liubo, invented around 1500 BC, Chaturanga would obviously be a variant of these older Chinese games. (See http://www.yutopian.com/chinesechess/history.html .) Each Xiàngqí player, as in Liubo, begins the game with one (1) General and five (5) Pawns, with victory defined by capture of the General. In the game of Liubo, however, the moves of the playing pieces are decided by a roll of dice. Accordingly, Xiàngqí predates the Indian game Chatrang and modern-day "Western" chess.
: I haven't seen this claim made in any mainstream source. I'll do some background checking on it later, but given other inaccurate material added by the same user I'm not inclined towards leaving it in the article. Some of the linked article seems to contradict the evidence presented in a paper about Liuno in the Journal of Board Game Studies (1999).
:Sorry buddy, that is not a RS. Just looks like they plucked things out of the air almost!Pubuman 03:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a theory that hasn't been seriously suggested since the early 20th century. The game displayed in the image is far more like to be the Royal Game of Ur. --Imran 19:49, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese and Egyptian origin 

message: I have blanket-reverted Roylee's edits to this article. My reason is that he obviously tries to promote his extremely dubious, VfD'ed article  Latin Alphabet: Circumstantial Evidence for Egyptian Origin by linking it here. I can't judge the merits of the rest of his additions, and decided to err on the side of caution (in knowing violation of the "When in doubt, don't delete" principle), but everybody please feel free to reinstate his contributions if you feel that is appropriate. Kosebamse 09:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you here.  I had to remove Roylee's attempt to add similiar stuff to the Chess page.  Samboy 00:06, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My revert of Roylee's addition 

message: "The main claim for an Egyptian origin of chess is the ancient image found in the tomb of Egyptian Queen Nefertari (1295-1255 BC) which shows her reaching over what appears to be a game of 10 playing pieces on a 4 x 7 board design. The board suggested in this image includes, like Xiàngqí, a large block of blank space in its middle between the two players. If Nefertari's image truly represents an older version of Xiàngqí, it would be our earliest indication of figurine-type playing pieces on a battle game played without dice."
"4x7 board design"? "a large block of blank space"? What the Hell!? I think this guy is not talking about the board (red rectangle) but Nefertari's friggin' chair! This is a bogus attempt to support the Xiangqi origin theory. QV66 has this same picture, describing it as a board of Senet. See .
We have to be careful when we interpret pictures of other cultures because of our cultural biases; what we see as "chess pieces" could be perfume bottles. This could've been (hipothetically) Nefertari putting some makeup on, for all we know.
The Senet theory seems much more plausible. I think this should be changed to reflect that the common interpretation of this picture is that of a Senet board, links to QV66 and Senet could be added. What do you think?--200.40.169.22 00:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed this fragment from main article, obviously Nefertari plays Senet on this painting, not a chess-like game. You can see that board has 10 rows all of them are occupied with pieces on the first line. It is quite unlikely for a chess-like game that such configuration happens. From the other side, Senet was played on the board 3x10 and the game started with players placing their pieces on the first line depending on dice. Tall pieces belong to one player, small to other one. So it looks like a start of Senet game. Andreas Kaufmann 18:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nefertari playing chess 

message: Can someone please supply a precise citation from the Mahabharata?  I am suspicious; a purported mention in the Code of Manu (maybe second century BC) turned out actually to be in a commentary, many centuries later. J S Ayer 03:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to search for "chess Mahabharata", using Google toolbar on Sacred-Texts: Hinduism. The only hit I found was this fragment in Book 4, Section 1: "...Presenting myself as a Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue, by throws of black and red dice. I shall entertain the king with his courtiers and friends." Certainly the mentioned game could be Chaturaji (4-handed Chaturanga), however more likely, that this game is a race game, like Pachisi. Andreas Kaufmann 08:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mahabharata 

message: I removed the following from the article:
"...One ancient Persian text refers to Shah Ardashir, who ruled from 224–241 CE, as a master of the game...." Chess is believed to be invented much later, this statement would need a reference to respectable source to stay in the article. Andreas Kaufmann 10:49, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shah Ardashir 

message: I added the little section on the Brahmin Sissa and his invention of chess and the picture of Siisa. This is all under India's origin of chess and hope it contributes well to the article. The information comes from the Chessbase website under the title Chess is a War Game. The link is in the external links section. 
Darkness1089
I still cannot find any reference to the Maha-Bharata that clearly describes chess rather than another board game, probably pachisi.  The evidence generally supports an Indian origin of chess; please do not damage the article by unsupported claims of a great antiquity. J S Ayer 22:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I added information on History of Indian Chess and gave a Timeline of Chess 

message: I just removed this bit of text from the Catalan Opening article, since it has nothing to do with that subject (bold as in the original):
:In 1008, a Catalonian nobleman, Count Ermengol of Urgell, specified in his will that his chess pieces were to be left to the Convent of St. Giles near Nîmes, present France and then in the area of influence of the Catalan Counties. This is the earliest recorded mention of chess in European history. 
I can't vouch for its veracity, but since I thought somebody else could, and might have a better idea of where it might go, and since history of chess redirects to this article, I've copied it here. --Camembert 01:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A bit removed from [[Catalan Opening]]

message: The text says that chess reached Russia via Mongolia.  I object to this.  The Mongols have no sound "f" and converted "ferz" to "bers", yet Russians know "ferz" as a name for the chess-queen.  Also the Mongols have no elephants among their chessmen, using a camel, as I recall, yet the Russians often call the bishop "slon" which is their word for an elephant.  For both reasons I think chess reached Russia from Persia.  Before the twentieth century Russian chessmen were usually of ivory, left white on both sides but with one side carved to represent Russians and the other side Persians. J S Ayer 00:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chess reaching Russia 

message: Someone has inserted a statement (under "India") that Sissa was however killed, because the king would be ruined if Sissa's wish were granted.  This is a reference to part of the story that is not in the article: The king asked Sissa what reward he would like for his splendid achievement in creating this game, and Sissa asked for a chessboard with one grain of wheat on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on by powers of two.  The king, impressed by the sage's moderation, ordered it done, only to discover before long that there wasn't enough wheat in all the world to do what was asked.  Sissa, laughing, said that he had known this all along, and was amply rewarded by the chance to teach the power of even a low-level geometric progression.  So king and sage were reconciled; there is no mention of the one having the other put to death.  I will therefore remove the sentence.  J S Ayer 15:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sissa's Wish 

message: Since what point in time have the current rules been in effect? Since the introduction of en passant capture? Dynzmoar 12:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern rules 

message: This article suggests (and I believe correctly) that the word "chess" is derived from Persian shah, but the Chess article suggests it is derived from chaturanga. Which is correct, what does chaturanga mean?--Josh Rocchio 17:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: H.J.R. Murray argues exhaustively in his History of Chess that it is derived from "shah" and the warning from one player that the other's king is under attack.  "Chaturanga" means "four arms" and refers to the four branches of an ancient Indian army.  J S Ayer 01:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  shah/chaturanga 

message: The idea that "Chess was invented in India" hypothesis is some kind of scientific consensus is absurd, and it should be immediately fixed.
The real question is - should we even treat it seriously in Wikipedia, in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary ?
Two oldest somewhat documented chess-like games are Chinese Xiangqi and Indian Chaturanga. Xiangqi is commonly accepted to come from 4th-2nd century BC, Chaturanga from 6th or 7th century AD.
So claiming Indian origin means one of:
* Chaturanga and Xiangqi do not have common origins
* Chaturanga comes from Xiangqi (or from common source with Xiangqi), but Xiangqi is somehow "not chess"
* Chaturanga is over 1000 years older that the evidence suggests
* Xiangqi is over 1000 years younger than the evidence suggests
Let's first deal with the claim that Xiangqi was developed independently from Chaturanga.
They are both played by two players on small rectangular board (8x8 or 10x9), each taking turns in which they could
move one piece, and the move could cause capture of some enemy pieces. The objective is capturing/checkmating the enemy king/general.
Most pieces can move everywhere, and capture the way they move. The pieces start at opposing sides of the board, stronger ones in the
last row, weaker ones in front of the strong ones. From the center (capturing rules and river, palace, etc. skipped) they are:
* in Xiangqi:
** one general, moving horizontally and vertically by 1
** two advisors, moving diagonally by 1
** two elephants, moving diagonally by 2
** two horses, moving like horses
** two chariots, moving horizontally and vertically by any distance
** two cannons, moving horizontally and vertically by any distance
** five soldiers, moving forward by 1
* in Chaturanga (according to reconstructed rules from Wikipedia, details vary):
** one king, moving in any direction by 1
** one counsellor, moving diagonally by 1
** two chariots, moing horizontally and vertically by any distance
** two elephants, moving diagonally by 2
** two horses, moving like horses
** eight soldiers, moving forward by 1
Can anybody seriously claim these games are so similar by chance ? They are far more similar to each other than Xiangqi to Shogi or Chaturanga to International chess, and nobody claims Shogi or International chess were invented intependently.
Both 1000 years misdating hypotheses can be ignored unless further evidence is given.
So by now we know that all kinds of chess come from something modern Xiangqi-like,
and there is no evidence suggesting Xiangqi wasn't invented in China.
The only possible objection left is that Xiangqi is somehow "not chess".
I really fail to see how can anybody seriously call Chaturanga "chess"
and Xiangqi "not chess", given how similar they are.
One more thing - Murray doesn't seem like a serious source on origins of chess. It seems he didn't even know about Xiangqi !
For more discussion see 
Wikipedia should plainly state that, as far as all evidence goes, chess was invented in China.
Taw 17:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article by Sam Sloan, which you refer to, is well-written and interesting to read. However, it could be historically inaccurate. Please see on Talk:Early Arabic chess literature some comments of Cazaux, French chess historian, on Murray's book and origin of chess. In his book, Murray actually devotes a chapter to Xiangqi and its variants. He also seriously considered possibility that the game called "Xiangqi" as played 2nd century could be a chess-like game, but rejects this hypothesis due to missing historical evidence.  Andreas Kaufmann 22:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Apparently "xiangqi" was the name of two or three games, so, unless the game is not only named but described, the reference is inadequate.  In European game history we have cases where, for example, an account-book lists an expenditure for "two foxes and twenty-six geese for merels" although merels is a game with the same number of pieces and of the same type on each side; fox and geese is a different game, with asymmetrical forces and goals. J S Ayer 03:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is very little question that chess was invented in China 

message: Although the article says that the most commonly agreed upon place for the origin of chess is India, this picture of Persian Youths is VERY VERY misleading. It is only fair that that picture is moved down to somewhere else and the picture is replaced with a picture of ancient Indian chess players or chess games. 
Wikipedia is contradicting itself by saying chess was invented in India and displaying a picture claiming Persian invention of the game of chess. There is a very famous painting showing Radha and Krishna playing chess. This will truly convey the message that the game of chess is deeply rooted to Indian culture and will fairly acknowledge the contributions the people of India have made to the modern world.
Darkness1089 22:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Pesian Youths Picture HAS to be removed 

message: WP:NPOV
The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth, and all significant published points of view are to be presented, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.
Please leave all properly referenced information on this article. Kelvinc 22:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitary deletion of information is POV 

message: Can there be a little discussion here? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.60.179.147 (talk) 13:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neurolinguist Programming 

message: According to our articles on Buddhist scriptures, almost all Buddhist texts are attributed to the Buddha, although many are demonstrably from a much later date.  I am therefore reducing the strongest statements based on Buddhist texts, until someone can demonstrate that they actually date from the Buddha's own time, rather than, say, a dozen centuries later. J S Ayer 03:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of Buddhist Scripture 

message: In tidying up someone's attempt to change the relative prominences of certain headings, I have been forced to remove an external link because it is identified as spam.  I do not agree with this classification, but have not yet gotten involved with meta-wiki, which I must do to ask for the reinstatement of the link to the website emphasizing Iran's part in the origin of chess. J S Ayer 02:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of an External Link 

message: I am rather consterned by what I read here. Too many comments, either from chess-was-invented-in-India or from chess-was-invented-in-China are ill-informed, or simply wrong.
There are so many speculations here. Sentences like "no one can in any way claim that chess was invented outside of India." does not allow to progress at all.
This is too bad. I agree with the 1st comment, this Wiki page should remain as neutral as possible.
The truth is that nobody can argue that India (what does that mean ? including Pakistan?), or Persia (what does that mean? including today Central Asia and Afghanistan?) or China (what does that mean? including Xinjiang?) is the place of origin for chess.
Yes Chinese had elephants in their army. Saying the opposite is just wrong. But, so what? It proves nothing, the piece in chinese chess is meant as  a minister (xiang) and it is an elephant only by homonymy and for 1 side only. One can imagine a proto-chess with a minister, becoming an elephant after a westward diffusion along the Silk road. Or the contrary...
Some very serious and recognized historians have shown a possible connection with the earliest Chess history and the city of Kannauj on the upper Ganges valley. However, other serious historians are advancing counter arguments (for instance of the well know Bana's sentence, which might be concerning chess ... or something else).
The first description of chess rules in India in an Indian text is the Manasollasa. It dates from the beginning of the 12th century. At this date, Chess had been described widely in the Muslim world and, even, in Europe!
The oldest, undisputed texts are Persian. They are from about 600 AC. There is no possibility to say if older Chinese texts are talking about chess or another game. What is attributed to older Indian text is simply modern interpretation, not to say poor translation, by modern authors. In particular it is funny that everyone cites Murray HoC, but how many have read it? If one reads p36 (OK it is written in very small character...) he will see that he had dealt with the Book 4 of Mahabharata :  "there is no term that necessitates chess" there. Same for the Brahmajala sutta: the original sanskrit text talks about Ashtapada and Dasapada. So boards for game are meant, but nowhere it's said the games are chess or anything alike. Most probably they were betting games, lotteries, with dice.
The oldest archaeological findings are coming from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan which were lands of eastern Persian langages then. It doesn't mean more than ... they are the earliest found so far. There are much less findings in India because the climate is less conserving, because the lands are much more crowded, etc. In China it is complicated because earliest chess (xiangqi) pieces could have been confused with old coins.
The earliest Persian texts say that the game was invented in ... Hind. Hind was the region of Indus, today Sind in Pakistan. Was this tale true? It is impossible to say.
About the discussion on the chess or xiangqi structure. I have studied this, and I should say that the Chinese rules and architecture of the game seems, to me, more primitive than the indian/persian one. I can more easily imagine a transition from China to Persia/India than the contrary.
So, what can be said is Chess was invented somewhere in modern Afghanistan-Pakistan-Northern India-Uzbekistan-Tadjikistan-China and that this Wikipage would better remains neutral for the present time.
Cazaux 12:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  India, Persia or China 

message: This:
:Although there are many who claim to have invented chess, the most commonly held view is that it was invented and played in India. Krishna and Radha are shown playing chaturanga on an 8x8 Ashtāpada.
is kind of OR. A reference should be found for these statements and the source of the image should also be found. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 05:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Any thoughts on a solution? Padishah5000 07:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture description kind of OR 

message: I have reverted the most recent edit, as someone has someone has changed the spelling of a number of Chinese names and words IN LINKS, destroying them as links.  Please, if you must monkey with the spelling, keep the meaning clear, and learn to make a pipe link.  Generally it's best to use the established spelling, even if something purer could be devised. J S Ayer 02:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most recent edit and revert 

message: Somebody please explain this, found in the article:
An argument can also be advanced that chess pieces hewn from stone were miniature versions of totems, useful for representing and predicting the conflict of divine forces in nature or society according to scientific methods available to anyone curious enough to inquire. 
I wasn't aware that totems could be used to make any sort of predictions that could be termed "scientific" in any way. I will remove the italicized phrase.
216.215.128.95 00:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I see how they can hypothesize, but I don't think it'll pass the experimentation part of the scientific method. --JDitto 06:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chess pieces as "scientific" talismans??? Vandalism??? 

message: Why are we promoting Cox-Forbes?  It was totally debunked and known to be absolute bullocks as early as 1874.  It also looks to me like the Indus Valley Civilization stuff is pure speculation based on a few pieces of clay. Quale 07:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed Cox-Forbes from the article. The rest looks good to me. Regards, Mountain Priest 14:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cox-Forbes theory]]