The History of Chess. H. J. R. Murray
the chatrang.
3. On the third day Wajūrgmitr of the house of Būkhtak rose and said, ‘Live for ever! I have not revealed the interpretation of the chatrang until this day, in order that you and every dweller in Īrān may know that I am the wisest of all the people of Īrān. I shall easily discover the interpretation of the chatrang, and take tribute and revenue from Dēwasārm. And I will make yet another thing and send it to Dēwasārm, which he will not discover, and we shall take double tribute and revenue from him. And from that day none shall doubt that you are worthy to be Shāhānshāh, and that your wise men are wiser than those of Dēwasārm.’
4. Then said Shāhānshāh: ‘O Wajūrgmitr, hail to our Takhtarītus!’, and he commanded that 12,000 dirhems should be given to Wajūrgmitr.
5. On the next day Wajūrgmitr called Takhtarītus before him and said: ‘Dēwasārm has fashioned this chatrang after the likeness of a battle, and in its likeness are two supreme rulers after the likeness of Kings (shāh), with the essentials of Rooks (rukh) to right and to left, with a Counsellor (farzīn) in the likeness of a commander of the champions, with the Elephant (pīl) in the likeness of a commander of the rearguard, with the Horse (asp) in the likeness of the commander of the cavalry, with the Foot-soldier (piyādak) in the likeness of so many infantry in the vanguard of the battle.’ Thereupon Takhtarītus arranged the chatrang, and played with Wajūrgmitr. Wajūrgmitr won 12 games against Takhtarītus, and there was great joy throughout the whole land.
6. Then Takhtarītus stood up and said: ‘Live for ever! God has bestowed upon you such glory and majesty and power and victory. Verily you are lord of Īrān and An-īrān.
7. Several wise men of India devised this chatrang with much toil and labour, and sent it hither and (?) arranged it. There was none who could expound it, but Wajūrgmitr by his innate wisdom has interpreted it with ease and speed and has added many riches to the Shāhānshāh’s treasury.’
8. On the next day the Shāhānshāh called Wajūrgmitr before him and said to him: ‘My Wajūrgmitr, what is that thing of which you said, “I will make it and send it to Dēwasārm”?’
9. Wajūrgmitr replied: ‘Of all the rulers of this millennium has Artakhshīr been the most active and the wisest, and I erect a game Nēw-Artakhshīr5 after the name of Artakhshīr. I fashion the board of Nēw-Artakhshīr in the likeness of the land of Spandārmadh, and I fashion 30 men in the likeness of the 30 days and nights; I fashion 15 white in the likeness of day and 15 black in the likeness of night; I fashion the movement of each after the likeness of the movement of the constellations, and in the likeness of the revolution of the firmament.’
10. (The explanation of the spots on the faces of the dice) ‘I fashion “one” in movement in this likeness because Hurmazd is one, and he has created all that is good.
11. “Two” I fashion in the likeness of heaven and earth.
12. “Three” I fashion in this likeness because good thoughts treat of words, works, and thoughts.
13. “Four” I fashion in this likeness because there are 4 temperaments of which man is formed, and because the points of the world are 4, East, West, South, and North.
14. “Five” I fashion in this likeness because there are 5 lights, the sun, the moon, the stars, fire, and the light which comes from heaven, and because the divisions of day and night are 5.
15. “Six” I fashion in this likeness because the creation of the world was in the 6 times of the Gahanbār.
16. The arrangement of Nēw-Artakhshīr upon the board, I fashion in this likeness because Hurmazd the lord placed the things which he had created upon the world.
17. The movement of the men in this direction and in that I fashion in this likeness because man’s energy in this world is linked with the heavenly bodies; and the 7 stars move in 12 fixed circles, and fall when it is time for one to defeat and remove another, just as men in this world defeat and remove one another.
18. When (?) all are removed … it resembles man because men must all depart from the world, and when they are again arranged, it resembles man because at the resurrection all men are made alive again.’
19. When the Shāhānshāh heard this oration he was filled with joy and commanded (his servants to provide) 12,000 Arab steeds all adorned with gold and pearls, and 12,000 young men, the most distinguished in Īrān; and 12,000 coats of mail with 8 …; and 12,000 belts with 7 clasps; and everything else that is necessary to equip 12,000 men and horses in the most worthy fashion. And he placed Wajūrgmitr of the house of Būkhtak over them as leader at an auspicious season, and he arrived in India in good health by God’s help.
20. When Dēwasārm, the great ruler of India, saw him in this manner he asked Wajūrgmitr of the house of Būkhtak for 40 days’ time, but there was none of the wise men of India who could discover the interpretation of the game of Nēw-Artakhshīr; and Wajūrgmitr received from Dēwasārm twice the tribute and revenue; and he returned in good health and with great ceremony to Īrān.
21. The solution of the interpretation of the chatrang is this, that in it the understanding in particular is recognized as the essential weapon by virtue of which, as certain wise men have said, ‘the victory is obtained by intellect’. The principle of play in chatrang is to watch and strive to maintain one’s own pieces, to take great pains as regards the being able to carry off the opponent’s pieces, and in the desire of being able to carry off the opponent’s pieces not to play an unfair game. The player must always guard that one piece which is most convenient for the (?) move, and take care to (?) move in a fair way so that he may stand blameless in the matter of good manners.
It is obvious that we have here a literary work, not a simple record of historical fact. The intention of the narrative lies upon the surface, the exalting of the wisdom and fame of the Persian race at the expense of a neighbouring people. The Shāhnāma shows many similar examples of this form of patriotic writing. The colour and treatment of the stories are entirely literary, but behind all these embellishments there is always to be found a basis of fact from which the narrative has been developed. In the present case the basis of the story is the historical fact that the game of chess was introduced into Persia from India, coupled with the popular tradition that this event had taken place in the reign of Nūshīrwān.
The literary construction of the Chatrang-nāmak is crude and conventional. The parallelism of the incidents, the embassies, their riddles, the attempts at solution, the amazing success of the one party and utter failure of the other, all betray the want of experience and skill of the early explorers in the field of fiction. The plot of the story by which rival monarchs stake tribute or lands upon the solution of a puzzle or riddle recurs very frequently in rudimentary forms of literature.6
In opposition to the Indian invention of chess is placed the Persian invention of nard (tables or backgammon); surely a very unsatisfactory contrast from the patriotic Persian point of view, for the invention of chess seems in every way the more wonderful achievement. But the romance shows no sign of any suspicion of this, and the writer would appear to have judged of nard by the elaborate symbolism of the game which occupies so considerable a portion of his work. We cannot give him credit for the invention of the interpretation: it is almost a commonplace among Arabic writers; and Nöldeke has suggested that it may everywhere go back to a Neo-Platonic or or Neo-Pythagorean Greek source. It is, however, possible that the writer’s choice of nard for the Persian reply to the Indian invention of chess, may be due to the admiration that he felt for this symbolic explanation of the game. In any case the choice was unfortunate. The history of nard has still to be written, but its antiquity is undoubtedly very great. Chinese works record its introduction from India into China in the 3rd c., A.D. As will be seen in the following chapter, there is good reason to believe that the game was known to the Greeks in the 6th c., A.D., by the name of tabla or taula. The older Arabic historians attribute its invention to India, and associate it with the mythical kings whom they allot to that peninsula. At the same time other Arabic works show a persistent attempt to connect the invention of nard with Ardashīr, the first of the Sāsānians,