Chaturanga

Chaturanga is the earliest known form of chess, from the 6th century AD.

This precursor of modern chess originated in the northern Indian subcontinent during the Gupta empire.Murray H.J.R. 1913. The history of chess. Oxford University Press. reprint  'Chaturanga' translates as 'the four divisions', meaning infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. They were the four divisions of an Indian army at the time, and no doubt the game was thought of as a war-game. At that time the game had no female piece: what we now call the queen was called Mantri, meaning a minister or advisor.

The game eventually spread to the rest of the world after the Muslim conquest of Persia. It was then called Shatranj.

From the beginning until the end of the 15th century the pieces we call bishops and queens had limited movement, and it took longer to get the pieces into action. In modern chess, the original pieces evolved into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen, king, respectively.Hooper, David and Whyld, Kenneth 1992. The Oxford Companion to Chess 2nd ed, Oxford University Press. p173; p74

 References 

Category:Chess variants
Category:6th-century works