Historia Ajedrez

Introduction
I am an enthusiast of historical chess variants; I was very delighted to hear about the chessvariants,
history.chess.free.fr, Wikipedia articles, Chinese Chess History, zillionsofgames as well as various
other interesting sites that explained ancient variants & rules of playing them.
My interest began in learning how to play these games; then I wanted a clear comparable set ofrules
on how to play them. This inspired me to start this small exercise of writing the rules of major
historical chess variants that was played on familiar board sizes (i.e. 8x8 or slightly larger).
I started writing the rules of Chaturanga, the assumed ancestor of all chess variants, & then wrote
about the various other descendants. I resorted heavily on the above mentioned sites as well asother
information that I’ve searched on the Internet.
I tried to the best of my efforts to capture all the rules that are mentioned & crossed checked them
with all the available information that I was able to gather.
The result was this document, which I later tried to give it more flavor by adding some historical
details as well as some insightful speculations, which I inferred from readingvarious authorities on
the subject. Again all the information I’ve gathered were Internet based information.
At the end, I also decided to add an Appendix to explain the ancient Indian spiral race board game
called Ashtapada, which historians believe that its board was used to develop Chaturanga. I’ve
reconstructed the rules from a similar old Indian race game called Ashta-Kashte.

I Hope thatthis document will be of interest to the rest of the historical chess variants community.

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this document, or would like to suggest a correction of
information, please contact me at: daou.nader@gmail.com.

Nader Daoud Daou
Dmit, Shouf, Lebanon
March 31, 2007

I. Chaturanga1 (Indian Chess)
Board Setup:
•
•

Non-checkered 8x8 Board with 64squares available for the movement of pieces.
There are 16 pieces for each player; named:
Name
Raja, Rajah

Pieces

Meaning

1

King

Mantri, Senapati

1

Counselor/Adviser, General (Ferz)

Gaja/Dwipa

2

Elephant2

Ashva/Ashwa/Asva, Turaga

2

Horse (Knight)

Ratha

2

Chariot (Rook)

Padati/Pedati/Patti/Bhata, Sainik

8

Foot Soldier, Warrior (Pawn)

King:During setup, the King is always placed in the central square that is on the player’s right (i.e. Kings are not facing each others).
Other Pieces:
Same as in International Chess.
Piece Moves:
King:
Moves as usual king, but additionally has the right to make one knight-move /capture during the game, provided that he hasn't been
checked before he makes his knight-move/capture. Castlingdoesn't exist.
Elephant3:
Jumps two square diagonally4
Ferz:
Moves one square diagonally
Pawn:
Moves and takes as a usual pawn, but may not make a double step on its first move.
Pawn Promotion:
Pawns can promote when they arrive at the last rank of the board, but only to the type of piece that was on the promotion-square in the
opening setup. Additionally, promotion is only possible when theplayer already lost a piece of the type. A consequence of this rule is
that pawns never promote to kings5.
Special Rules:
• The goal of the game is to Checkmate the enemy King.
• There is no initial two-step Pawn move.
• There is no Castling option.
• Bare King counts as a Win.
• The player that Stalemates their opponent loses the game.
1

The Sanskrit name Chatur-Anga (meaning FourParts) was used to refer to the Indian “Army” of Vedic times in which a platoon had four parts: one
elephant, one chariot, three soldiers on horseback, and five foot-soldiers. Chaturanga is believed to have been developed between 400-450 AD in the
Gupta Empire (320-540 AD), Northern India, based on a board from an earlier race game (related to Pachisi), known as the Ashtapada. The Sanskrit
name...