﻿IX. 

 ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 



BY THE PRESIDENT. 



IF evidence be required to prove that chess was in- 

 vented by the Hindus, we may be satisfied with 

 the testimony of the Persians ; who, though as much 

 inclined as other nations to appropriate the ingenious 

 inventions of a foreign people, unanimously agree, that 

 the game was imported from the west of India, together 

 with the charming fables of Vishnusarman, in the 

 sixth century of our aera. It seems to have been imme- 

 morially known in Hindustan by the name of Chatu- 

 ranga, that is, the four angas, or members of an 

 army, which are said in the Amaracosha to be hasty- 

 aswarafhapadatam, or elephants, horses, chariots, 

 and foot soldiers ; and in this sense the word is fre- 

 quently used by epic poets in their descriptions of 

 real armies. By a natural corruption of the pure 

 Sanscrit word, it was changed by the old Persians 

 into Chatrang ; but the Arabs, who soon after took 

 possession of their country, had neither the initial 

 nor final letter of that word in their alphabet, and 

 consequently altered it further into Shatranj, which 

 found its way presently into the modern Persian, and 

 at length into the dialects of India, where the true 

 derivation of the name is known only to the learned. 

 Thus has a very significant word in the sacred language 

 of the Brahma?is been transformed by successive 

 changes into axedrez, scacchi, echecs, chess, and, by 

 a whimsical concurrence of circumstances, given 

 birth to the English word check ; and even a name 

 to the Exchequer of Great Britain. The beautiful 

 simplicity and extreme perfection of the game, as it is 



