Chaturaji (means "
four kings", also known as "
Choupat",
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
, ) is a four player
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
-like game. It was first described in detail
circa 1030 by Biruni in his
India book. Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice. A diceless variant of the game was still played in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
at the close of the 19th century.
The ancient
Indian epicIndian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent. Originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, it includes some of the oldest epic poetry ever created and some works form the basis of Hindu scripture.- Sanskrit Epics :The...
MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa , and forms an important part of Hindu mythology....
contains a reference to a game, which could be Chaturaji:
However, there is no certainty whether the mentioned game is really a chess-like game like Chaturaji, or a race game like
PachisiNot to be confused with ParcheesiPachisi is a cross and circle board game that originated in ancient India; it is described as the national game of India. It is played on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross...
.
Captain Cox and professor Forbes put forth a theory (the
Cox-Forbes theoryThe Cox-Forbes theory is a long-debunked theory on the evolution of chess put forward by Captain Hiram Cox and extended by Professor Duncan Forbes ....
), that Chaturaji is a predecessor of
ChaturangaChaturanga is an ancient Indian game which is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi....
and hence the ancestor of modern chess.
Chaturaji (means "
four kings", also known as "
Choupat",
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
, ) is a four player
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
-like game. It was first described in detail
circa 1030 by Biruni in his
India book. Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice. A diceless variant of the game was still played in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
at the close of the 19th century.
History
The ancient
Indian epicIndian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent. Originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, it includes some of the oldest epic poetry ever created and some works form the basis of Hindu scripture.- Sanskrit Epics :The...
MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa , and forms an important part of Hindu mythology....
contains a reference to a game, which could be Chaturaji:
However, there is no certainty whether the mentioned game is really a chess-like game like Chaturaji, or a race game like
PachisiNot to be confused with ParcheesiPachisi is a cross and circle board game that originated in ancient India; it is described as the national game of India. It is played on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross...
.
Captain Cox and professor Forbes put forth a theory (the
Cox-Forbes theoryThe Cox-Forbes theory is a long-debunked theory on the evolution of chess put forward by Captain Hiram Cox and extended by Professor Duncan Forbes ....
), that Chaturaji is a predecessor of
ChaturangaChaturanga is an ancient Indian game which is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi....
and hence the ancestor of modern chess. An even stronger version of this theory was put forward by Prof.
Stewart CulinStewart Culin was an ethnographer and author interested in games, art and dress. He believed that similarity in gaming demonstrated similarity and contact among cultures across the world.-Early life:...
. However, this theory was rejected by Murray, modern scholars siding with Murray.
Piece moves
The game is played with pieces of four different colors as shown in the diagram. Each player has four pieces on the back rank with four pawns in front of them on the second rank. The four pieces are
king,
elephant,
horse and
boat (or
ship in some sources). The king moves like the chess
kingIn chess, the King is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that he would not be able to avoid capture . If a player's king is threatened with capture, he is said to be in check, and the player must move so as to remove the threat of capture...
, the elephant like the chess
rookA rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes , and non-players still often call it a "castle". Using the rook in a specialized double-movement with the king is still refered to as castling...
and the horse like the chess
knightThe knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head, leading some to refer to it informally as a "horse"....
. The boat corresponds to the chess
bishopA bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
but has a more restricted range, like the
alfil in
ShatranjShatranj is an old form of chess, which came from India to Persia and has been popular in Persia and the Middle East for almost 1000 years. Modern chess has gradually developed from this game.-Etymology and origins:...
. The boat moves two squares diagonally in any direction as shown in the diagram, jumping over the intervening square. Note that this differs from most ancient chess-like games where it is the elephant which normally corresponds to the chess bishop.
The
pawnThe pawn is the most numerous and the weakest piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the second rank from the view of the player...
also moves as in chess, but does not have the option of an initial double-square move. Each of the four players' pawns moves and captures in a different direction along the board, as one would expect from the initial player's setup. For example, the red pawns which start on the g-file above move left across the board, promoting on the a-file. Also, the pawn's promotion rules are different; one must promote to the piece that starts on the same file (or rank) of the promotion square (king included) and one can promote only after one's piece of that type has been captured.
Boat triumph
When a boat moves in such a way that a 2x2 square filled with boats is formed, it captures all three boats of other players (see diagram). This rule is called
boat triumph.
Dice throws
On each turn two dice are thrown. Usually oblong (four sided) stick dice were used. Players were allowed to throw the dice in the air and catch them, exercising some control over the outcome. However playing with cubic dice is also possible. Pieces to be moved are determined by dice numbers (note that the stick dice didn't have 1 and 6):
- 1 or 5 - pawn or king
- 2 - boat
- 3 - knight
- 4 or 6 - elephant
On each turn two moves may be made, one for each die. The same or two different pieces may be moved, and the player may skip one or both of his moves if desired.
Scoring
There is no check or checkmate. The king can be captured like any other piece. The goal of the game is to collect as many points as possible. Points are scored by capturing opponents' pieces, according to this scale:
- pawn - 1
- boat - 2
- knight - 3
- elephant - 4
- king - 5.
A score of 54 points is awarded to a player who manages to capture all three opponents' kings while his own king remains on the board. This value is a sum of points of all pieces in three armies.
Further reading
- D.B. Pritchard
David Brine Pritchard was a British chess writer and indoor game consultant. He "gained pre-eminence as an indoor games and mind sports consultant, a role that he in effect created...
(1994). The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (p. 48-49). ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
External links
- Chaturanga for four players by Hans Bodlaender.
- Chaturaji software, including multi-media encyclopedia with Cox-Forbes theory.
- 4-handed Chaturanga with dice implementation for Zillions of Games
Zillions of Games is a commercial General Game Playing system developed by Jeff Mallett and Mark Lefler in 1998. The game rules are specified with S expressions, Zillions rule language. It was designed to handle mostly abstract strategy board games or puzzles. After parsing the rules of the game,...
.