The game of Chess is of great antiquity, and
appears
to have been invented in China or Hindostan - Sir Wm. Jones inclines to
the latter supposition. In the 2d vol. of the Asiatic Researches,
he says, We may be satisfied with the testimony of the Persians,
who,
though as much inclined as other nations to appropriate the ingenious
invention
of a foreign people, unanimously agree that the game was imported from
the West of India in the sixth century of our era ; it seems to have
been
immemorially known in Hindostan by the name of Chaturanga, i.e. the four
angas or members of an army, which are these - elephants, horses,
chariots,
and foot soldiers ; and in this sense the world is frequently used by
epic
poets in their descriptions of real armies. By a natural
corruption
of the pure and ancient 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 the final letter of the 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 dialect of India, where the true
derivation of the word is known only to the learned. Thus has a
very
significant word in the sacred language of the Brahmins been
transformed,
by progressive changes, into axedras, scacchi, echecs, chess, and by a
whimsical concurrence of circumstances, has given birth to the English
word check, and even a name to the exchequer of Great
Britain. He
speaks also of the rath, or armed chariot, which the Bengalese
pronounced
roth, and which the Persians changed into rokh, whence came the
rook of
some European nations ; as the vierge and fol, of the French, are
supposed
to be corruptions of ferze and fil, the prime minister and elephant of
the Persians and Arabs. |
It is perfectly clear that Chess was not known to
the Greeks or Romans, - indeed it is commonly supposed not to have
been introduced into Europe till the time of the Crusades, though there
is a set of Latin verses in Hyde, describing the game, which is said to
have been written during the time of the Saxons, and therefore a good
number
of years before the first Crusade. Several points in which the
Eastern
game now differs from ours were then observed in Europe. - Pen.
Cyclop. |
The Spirit of the Times, New York,
1845.12.13
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