Single Comment

Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

optional wrote on Sat, Mar 14, 2009 06:13 AM UTC:

Does that apply for Star Trek 3D and Jetan, also?

Imagine Martians landing on Earth, and excavating our vanished 20th
century civilization. They could, without being able to read anything,
reconstruct the basic rules of chess from all the pictures. But could they
possibly know about 'touch rules'? And how long would they argue over the
details of castling and en passant vs passar battaglia? Yet, they would
have, and probably be playing, chess, in spite of their not officially
knowing the rules, or even being able to determine all the nuances of the
rules. We are currently in the same position vis a vis chaturanga that our
Martians are with chess. We know dice games, race games, the 4-sided and
later 2-sided setups, and we know the rules to its child shatranj. I
suggest that is enough to give the game legitimacy. We don't know the
rules, but we still have the game, especially in the wider sense of chess
variations. Ignoring it is the bigger sin.