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Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jason L. wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 12:47 PM UTC:
To Charles G.: When I say 'finished in development', what I mean is that
the fact that 8x8 Chess could be improved at least 500 years after
Xiangqi's last improvement before it was 'finished', suggests that the
original 8x8 game comes after the original Xiangqi game. It's not full
proof, but generally if 2 games come from the same source, it should be
faster for the original game to finish its development first because there
should be less changes necessary.

And my point is that there were less changes needed to be made from
pre-cannon Xiangqi to cannon Xiangqi as opposed to 8x8 Chess with 1 space
moving counselor and 2 space moving minister and 1 space moving pawns and
no castling and obviously no en passant.

Chess' complexity is approximately the same as Xiangqi (state-space) and
Xiangqi would have been more complex than Chess before the bishop and queen
were made long range and the pawns 2 spaces. In Xiangqi, pawns only move 1
space, the 2 counselors only move 1 space in the palace, and the minister
still moves 2 spaces exactly. That means all they did was add an additional
minister, counselor and the 2 cannons in the only place they can fit on the
board. That's an easier development process than what happened with 8x8
Chess in Europe.

So if both games have those same moving pieces and they come from the same
game, then Xiangqi is more likely the first game because those pieces still
move the same on the board.

I'm not making a strong argument about which board comes from which. Just
that the in terms of game development, a game that does not need to change
the movements of its pieces is probably precedes another game with the same
pieces on a different board and different setup.

In order to say logically that the original moving pieces are borrowed from
8x8 Indian Chess in its first known form, the Chinese would have had to
take the one space moving counselor and 2 space moving minister and change
the board dimensions to make those pieces work properly. That is not
impossible, but it is less likely. Generally, a civilization would change
the movements of pieces and rules of the game when developing a game and
not the board.

When I say 'finished its development' I know it is a matter of opinion
what 'finished' means, but I am saying that the fact that the minister
and counselor needed improvements for 8x8 Chess to be as good as Xiangqi
with the cannons, suggests that the game came later and the movement of the
pieces are borrowed.

Logically speaking, if 8x8 Chess came first, the Indian/Persian
civilizations would have put in the long range bishop/minister to begin
with and not made a 1 space moving counselor which does not make much sense
next to the king. If the king can move to all of its 8 spaces around it,
why would you want to put a piece right next to it that can move 1 space
diagonal only? It seems out of place and not logical. And the minister or
bishop moving exactly 2 squares seems silly also because that piece can
only reach 25% of the squares on the board.

If Xiangqi came from 8x8 Persian/Indian Chess, then there would probably be
changes to the movements of the pieces and not the other way around to fit
the different 9x10 intersection board. Instead, we have the same moving
pieces on both games and they need to be changed on 8x8 and not 9x10.

The 1 space moving counselor in Xiangqi makes sense because the general or
emperor moves only 1 space orthogonal and therefore the counselor(s) moves
differently than it. The 2 compliment each other. In 8x8 Chess, the 2
pieces in the center do not compliment each other.

I am not pointing fingers at anyone on this board, but the general attitude
of most Western sources that say with authority that Chess comes from India
at a certain time without doing any research into how related chess games
were developed in other parts of Asia. That seems like the European world
wants their version of Chess to be the first one. The original one and
arguably the best.

I often read in places, that Shogi and Xiangqi are not as good and
appealing as Chess. It looks like bigotry to me or at least ethnocentric
thinking which all cultures are like to a  certain degree. However, I have
noticed that Asian cultures like Japan and China don't automatically say
that FIDE Chess is junk and should be disregarded because its just copied
from Xiangqi or Shogi. That kind of attitude is not as prevalent although
the Japanese and Chinese also have their own superiority issues.

You guys say that no one on this board has any stake in whether the game
comes from Persia, Afghan, India, China or any other place, but I think
there is something at stake. Maybe not necessarily with everyone on the
board here, but with the Western world in general.

Since the Western world plays the best and most commonly accepted form of
Chess on an 8x8 board with Staunton pieces, if it were to be said that the
birthplace of Chess comes from China and not India, it would in a way
damage the image of the game as being the original and best one. The
concept being sold is that India is the birthplace and Europe improved the
game to what it is today. If people start saying the Indian version is
borrowed from the Chinese version on a different board, then Chess loses
its mystique and 'credibility' almost.

If you love 8x8 Chess or any form of chess, you naturally do not want to
say it is just copied from another game because it hurts your pride as a
person who plays that game as well as to perhaps your culture too.

I talk to Westerners, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese people and none of them
want to say that their game was from another game. They all like saying
their game is original to their culture and they came up with it on their
own. Since we know for sure 8x8 Chess doesn't come from Europe, it has to
be linked to some where and India/Persia are the earliest known places the
game comes from which is fine.

What is not fine is to say that other related games are assumed to be
copied from the first known cases of 8x8 Chess. That's an assumption that
should not automatically be made because as in the case of the Chinese
civilization, the Western world is telling the Chinese world that they
cannot make certain conclusions or estimations based on their own history
without proper evidence.

I'm saying that its wrong for people to demand evidence from a
civilization that they have proof that their own game comes from their
region. If they want to say it comes from their region, that's their
business. You don't have to agree with it, but it seems that for Chinese
Xiangqi historians, they are automatically wrong to think Spring and Autumn
period or Warring States period without sufficient evidence.