The History of Chess. H. J. R. Murray
it also requires a greater antiquity than the Chatrang-nāmak allows. It seems clear that we can attach no weight to this portion of the story. The embassy to India is pure invention.
Nor can we attach any more weight to the story of the embassy from India which brought chess to Persia. The wisdom of Buzūrjmihr has at all times been extolled, to Persian literature, but in this story it transcends belief. To discover the moves of the chessmen and the rules of play from a study of the board and pieces is to do something miraculous. Moreover, it is impossible to identify the Indian characters with any contemporaries of Nūshīrwān. Like all Arabic writers before al-Bērūnī, our author appears to have thought of India as a political entity similar to Sāsānian Persia. He shows no intimate knowledge of Indian history, for although he has given his Indian king a Sanskrit name (Dēwasārm answers to Devasharman8), it is difficult to see whence he obtained it. Nöldeke hazards the conjecture that it may be really identical with the name Dabshalim, the king in the Kalīla wa Dimna, and that the legendary Shahrām or Shihrām of another chess story may be a further perversion or misreading of the same name. The deficiencies of the Pahlawī script made misreadings of unfamiliar words that could not be guessed from the context extraordinarily easy. The name Takhtarītus9 also presents difficulties. Nöldeke suggests that the first element is the Per. takht, chessboard; West sees in it a compound term takht-rad, priestly counsellor of the throne, which he supposes may be a Mid. Per. rendering of some Sanskrit title or name. This much alone seems certain: the name is not Sanskrit.
We therefore come back to the simpler tradition that lies behind the Chatrang-nāmak, that chess was introduced into Persia in the reign of Nūshīrwān. The same tradition is to be found in al-Maṣ‘udī’s Murūj adhdhahab (A.D. 947). In his account of the reign of Nūshīrwān he says:
He had sent from India the book Kalīla wa Dimna, the game of chess, and a black dye called hindī, which dyes the hair to its roots a brilliant and permanent black.10
That is to say, the initiative in the introduction of chess was taken by Nūshīrwān, as was the case also in the translations of Greek and Sanskrit classics which were made in his reign. This reference in al-Maṣ‘ūdī appears to me to be quite distinct in origin from the Chatrang-nāmak, especially as it shows no attempt to magnify the reputation of the Persians, and as al-Maṣ‘ūdī adopts elsewhere a different opinion of the invention of nard.11 It will be noted that al-Maṣ‘ūdī connects the introduction of chess with the arrival in Persia of the collection of Indian fables called Kalīla wa Dimna.12 Most Persian scholars accept the evidence for the transmission of this work to Persia in the time of Nūshīrwān as satisfactory when stripped of the absurd embellishments and details that are added to the story in the Shāhnāma.
The only difficulty that I can see in accepting this traditional date of the introduction of chess as historical is the shortness of time which it leaves for the general adoption of chess in Persia. Within 120 years the game has attained the reputation which is evidenced by the reference in the Kārnāmak, and the fixity of nomenclature which the Arabic nomenclature requires. But no other Persian king is associated with the introduction in any known Arabic work. Ardashīr, son of Pāpak, is the Sāsānian most likely to be made the hero of a fictitious story, but he is only named in connexion with the discovery of nard. Shahrām (Shihrām), the king in the story of The Doubling of the Squares, is an Indian monarch. The phenomenon of the rapid spread of chess, however, can be paralleled by diffusions equally rapid at later points of the history of the game, and is indeed one of the most characteristic features of that history. If chess reached the royal Persian court first, and became the fashion there, its spread first to the upper classes and then to the lower orders may easily have taken place in the course of three generations.
The story of the Chatrang-nāmak appears again, but in a rather different form, in the national epic of Persia, the Shāhnāma of Abū’l-Qāsim Mansūr Firdawsī (begun by Daqīqī, 975; finished 1011).13 It is not certain whether Firdawsī had the earlier version before him. Wherever it has been possible to check the Shāhnāma by the older legends—as in the case of the Kārnāmak and the Yātkār-i-Zarīrān—the general fidelity of the later poet to ancient legend, even in matters of minute detail, has been established. In the present legend there are fundamental differences between the two versions, extending to the whole second part of the story. Nard, with the elaborate account of its symbolism, has gone entirely, and in its place Firdawsī describes another game of uncertain origin and arrangement.
The whole setting of the story in the Shāhnāma is different, and the story is told with greater literary skill. In one point alone does Firdawsī adopt a more sober colouring. He replaces the jewelled chessmen of the older writer by pieces of ivory and teak. The colours of the older work would seem, though, to be the more accurate historically. Red and green have apparently always been the favourite colours for the pieces in India, if not in Persia. Ath-Tha‘ālibī, in his Ghurar akhbār mulūk āl-Furs (1017–21),14 in his description of the marvellous treasures of Khusraw II Parwīz (590–628) says:
He had also the game of chess, of which the pieces were made of red rubies and of emeralds, and the game of nard made of coral and of turquoise,—
a treasure which in later historians15 was magnified until the chessmen were made of single rubies and single emeralds, and their value had grown until the smallest of the pieces was estimated at 3,000 golden dīnārs. Can it be that the story of the embassy from India arose from the existence of this chess set?
Firdawsī commences his story16 with a description of the magnificence of Nūshīrwān’s court, to which one day an ambassador from the Raja of India came, bringing many noble presents from Kanūj. Macdonell points out that the mention of this town as the home of the Indian monarch is very happy, since Kanūj (= Skr. Kānyakubya) is the very place where Bāṇa represents chess as being known not long after Nūshīrwān’s time.17
When he had displayed the treasures, the Indian envoy presented a richly illuminated letter from the Raja to Nūshīrwān and a chessboard constructed with such skill that it had cost a fortune, and proceeded to deliver the following message:
O king, may you live as long as the heavens endure! Command your wise men to examine this chessboard, and to deliberate together in every way in order that they may discover the rules of this noble game, and recognize the several pieces by their names. Bid them try to discover the moves of the Foot-soldiers (piyāda), the Elephants (pīl), and the other members of the army, viz. the Chariots (rukh), the Horses (asp), the Counsellor (farzīn), the King (shāh), and how to place them on their squares. If they can discover the rules of this beautiful game, they will excel all the wise men of the world, and we will willingly remit to this court the tribute and dues which the king demands of us, but if the wise men of Īrān are unable to solve the riddle, they ought to desist from demanding tribute from us, for they will not be our equals in wisdom; nay, rather, you ought to pay tribute to us, for wisdom is more excellent than everything else of which man may boast himself.
The message ended, the chessmen were presented and placed on the board. One side was of polished ivory, the other of teak. In reply to some questions from the king, the ambassador said that the game was a representation of war, and that in the game would be found the course, the plans, and all the apparatus of a battle. Nūshīrwān then asked and was granted a space of seven days for the investigation. For several days the wise men of Persia tried in vain to discover the game, but in vain. At last Buzūrjmihr, who had hitherto stood aloof, approached his king, and promised to solve the riddle which had proved too much for all the other wise men of the nation. He took the chess home to his house, and after a day and a night’s experimentation, he unravelled the whole game.
At his request the Indian ambassador was summoned, and made to recount again the terms of the challenge. Then Buzūrjmihr produced the chessmen, and proceeded to arrange the forces.
He placed the king in the centre, and on his right and left the ranks of the army, the brave foot-soldiers in the van, the prudent vizier beside the king to advise him in the battle, next to king and vizier were the elephants both observing the battle, then the horses ridden by two expert riders, lastly