Chess is a scientific game and its literature ought to be placed on the basis of the strictest truthfulness, which is the foundation of all scientific research. W._Steinitz

History and Literature of Chess.
Researched by Nick Pope

    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 rat’h, or armed chariot, which the Bengalese pronounced rot’h, 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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