There are two main contenders to the crown of the origin of chess. Xiangqi, the Chinese claimaint, is amongst the oldest board games in the world. Chaturanga, the Indian contender, is similarly ancient, and generally favoured by western historians (who have closer links with India than with China). The debate still rages.
Most Western histories of chess are happy to state that the game was invented in India in the 6th century AD, and that xiangqi then travelled from India to China, possibly carried along the silk trade routes. On the other hand, there do seem to be references to xiangqi in very early Chinese literature. These documents date back to the culturally famous Warring States period, 480BC to 221BC.
During this period, the setting for a lot of myths, legends and romantic tales in China, a succession of kingdoms struggled together in a series of savage battles. The wars eventually led to the triumph of the Chin people and the establishment of their realm, China. It would make sense that a game so clearly based on a battle would arise out of a time like this, and the pieces that the game uses do represent the major standard troop types used during the period. This is particularly true of the Chariots, which faded out of standard Chinese war practice soon after the period closed.
Orthodox opinion amongst Western, Indian and Middle Eastern chess historians tends to be that this earlier game was in fact related to wei-qi, known as Go in Japan. Wei-qi/Go is the game which holds the actual position of world’s oldest known board game. It remains a very highly-paid sport game in the Far East, but there are key differences to chess-type games. One of the greatest is that in wei-qi, there is only one type of piece, and it cannot be moved once placed on the board.
The fact remains that the early game described in Chinese literature appears to be much closer in nature and play style to xiangqi than to wei-qi. This presents the interesting possibility that chess may have originally travelled to India from China rather than vice-versa, and from there to the middle east and up into Europe. This would make xiangqi – at least in its early ancestral form – the original Chess game.
Playing Chess at the Temple, by Rosino
Many western chess historians are dismissive, generally taking the suggest as some sort of obscure insult. There have been claims that as xiangqi just cannot be the origin of chess, it must be a case of parallel evolution – the same ideas sparking the same sort of game with the same sort of moves just by accident. Occam’s razor however clearly suggests that such similar games arising coincidentally is unlikely – the games have enough in common that a historical link of some sort seems certain. Comparing early xiangqi and early forms of Chaturanga, the similarities are even clearer, sharing similarities which have been dropped entirely from Chess. We may never know for certain, of course – the controversy will continue as long as there are professional historians earning money from the topic.
Even the game’s name is the source of much argument and debate. Read literally, it means ‘The Elephant Game’ – which has often been used as a supporting argument for the Indian origin theory. There is a piece in the game called The Elephant, and Elephants are a big part of Indian culture. The Western bishop too, which was added in the 15th century, is still an Elephant in Indian, Russian and Spanish chess. However, it’s not clear-cut – elephants do seem to have existed in China at one point, as many legends refer to them. They may even have been used as war beasts.
Another argument on the Chinese side is that the word ‘xiang’ originally held a different meaning. When it is linked with another Chinese character, its meaning becomes that of a constellation of stars. Some scholars have suggested that this may mean the game had some astrological origins, and may even have been used in divination. It is known for certain that Chinese writing started this way, an offshoot of a system of divination that involved heating tortoise shells to cracking point and then reading the lines and patterns formed. Another piece of evidence to back this notion up is the weakness of the xiangqi Elephant piece, which is very odd compared to the overwhelming strength of elephant cavalry on early battlefields. A degree of linguistic confusion might explain the discrepancy.
Both sides claim to be proven of course, and there’s no real way to tell. I’m keeping an open mind. One thing though is certain – most Chinese people will be delighted if you tell them you support the view that Chess is a Chinese invention. Like most nations, they love to think that they invented just about everything! On the other hand, Western and Indian chess fans may be less pleased, even though the Chinese origin theory is becoming more acceptable.
It appears that because European (mostly British) writers had access to Persian and Indian documents, that this was the notion believed in the Western world for a long time. However, there was a lack of consideration of any Chinese source. But it appears that this bias against the Chinese inventing anything comes from a British dislike of the Chinese during the Opium Wars and/or a general condescending attitude towards Chinese which still exists very much today among Westerners. With China’s economic rise today, history is also being reconsidered. But this is still a Western world and the power of the pen rules.
Just by looking at the boards, the Chinese version appears to be the earlier version based on the improvements made to the king, counselor, and elephant pieces into a more powerful king (can move diagonal and leave the palace), queen, and bishop. An 8×8 version appears to have traveled West to Persia/India where it was modified before getting the final touches in Europe with rules like en passant. Later on, the Chinese added the cannon piece and that version travelled to Korea and Japan.
Also in the old Indian version (Chaturanga), the King’s are on opposite sides suggesting that the rule that King’s can’t face each other in the Chinese version was carried over, but it was later changed because the board was not symmetric. The king can move diagonal in the Indian version suggesting an improvement in movement. The queen or minister piece moves like the minister piece in Chinese chess (one square diagonally), and of the movements elephant piece moves 2 spaces diagonally similar to the elephant in the Chinese version.
However, the movement for the counselor/queen and the elephant are rather awkward for the set up of the pieces on the 8×8 board and they were changed as the development progressed.
Based on the fact that the movement of those 3 pieces was very similar in both games, and that the Chinese version still retains that kind of movement in its modern form while the Indian/Western version made those pieces stronger to fit the set up of its board, it’s logical to conclude the Indian version most likely came from the Chinese version. Also, the fact that the elephant piece in the Indian game has had 3 different movements to it, suggests experimentation of the piece to make it fit the game better.
The contrary is unlikely because the original movement of those 3 pieces seem to fit the Chinese 9×10 board so there was no need to change them.
One could only argue that the Chinese took awkward moving pieces from an awkward set up and made them more naturally fitting on a larger board, but in the development of a game from place to place, it seems more likely that pieces would be made more powerful and modified to fit a different board and set up rather than awkward moving pieces being borrowed, and the board and set up changed to make awkward moving pieces move more fittingly.
Or rather to put it simply, the early Chinese form is closer to the modern version suggesting those pieces were designed that way for a reason and were not a borrowed idea from another game and the early Indian version does appear to be borrowed because the minister/queen and elephant/bishop pieces move awkwardly in that set up.
If the Indian version came first, one would think the movement of those pieces would fit the board better, because why would one develop something with awkward moving pieces? You would make the pieces move better first before releasing it proudly to the rest of the world…
Fascinating comments. Thanks, Jason. I’m convinced, and I’m sure my Chinese sister-in-law will be in enthusiastic agreement!