Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Jason, I never said that Chinese chess is derived from shatranj. I suggest that both are derived from Shatranj al-Kamil, V.1 (John Gollon's listing), which was played on a 10x10 board. My reasoning is at http://www.goddesschess.com/chessays/johnayer.html .

I think the names 'India' and 'China' are having an undue effect, making people think of the modern nation-states, which are rivals. Gerhard Josten, of the Initiative Group Koenigstein, postulates that proto-chess was invented in the Kushan Empire, fusing elements of Greek origin (from the game of poleis or petteia) brought by the Macedonian army with elements of Indian origin (taken from a race game) and elements of Chinese origin (from liubo). His essay is at http://www.mynetcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/ in a pdf. I would like to hear what you think of it. Myron J. Samsin, also of the IGK, argues for a somewhat earlier date in the same area http://www.schachquellen.de/15122.html .

I would also like to hear why you think that the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period are a particularly likely setting for the origin of chess.

I see what you mean that if the 'finished' version of one is later the 'original' is later too, but that pre-supposes that the two have no common 'original'. That would mean that pieces with similar moves in similar positions were created independently in India and China. Most contributors (apparently including yourself) consider this unlikely.

I have already acknowledged that FIDE Chess is a bigger change from Chaturanga than post-Cannon Xiang Qi is from pre-Cannon Xiang Qi, but I do not see it following that the game that needed more change had already been greatly changed from another game. Surely it is more likely that the game that needed less change was the one that had the most prior change.

To call Xiang Qi an improvement on Chaturanga is not to put down China compared to Europe, which also improved on Chaturanga. To call Chaturanga a worsening of Xiang Qi is to say that India cannot even improve a game, let alone create one from scratch. Why should anyone change a game to make it worse? Repositioning pieeces to 'make them work properly' seems far more likely than repositioning pieces that already work properly so that they do not.

A better argument for Chatruranga being derived from Xiang Qi is the Pawn, which does look like an improvement. I concede that this strengthens the case for Chaturanga being derived from Xiang Qi, as does your evidence of pre-pre-Cannon Xiang Qi. How did you find out about that game? On the other hand, does anyone know whether there was a pre-Pawn Chaturanga with a front rank more like Xiang Qi or Shogi? I have read discussions on the Rook having a precursor (the Dabbaba - and where would that come from in a Chinese-origin theory) but never the Pawn.

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.

Lastly, Jason, you should stop claiming racial grievance and imputing improper motives to everyone else. We mongrels of the western world have explained repeatedly that we have nothing to gain or lose by whether chess originated in India, China, Egypt, or Antarctica. Nor is it true that we have announced a doctrine and then refused to reconsider. We have made an interpretation of the (alas! imperfect) evidence, but eagerly examine every new bit of evidence, and every new argument. This is why we consider everything you have to say, and keep asking for evidence.

Jason L.:

'Take the middle column of the palace in Xiangqi, and put the counselor on the first rank, the general on the 2nd rank, and the minister on the 3rd rank. That was the original setup. That plus 5 pawns or foot soldiers in the initial positions and a chariot and horse in the corners of the board. There were no other pieces on the back rank. Therefore, out of 9 possible points on the back rank, only 5 of them were occupied.'
	I was not aware of that. Nor have I seen any evidence from the comments that any other contributor was except you. That would certainly make a difference. If Xiang Qi used a pre-existing board it means that the board wasn't derived from the 8x8 one in the 'two half-boards' that so many here consider intuitive. It does not however mean that the reverse derivation happened either, as the 8x8 board too was a pre-existing one. It means that the half-boards misunderstanding never happened in either direction, and that the boards therefore have no bearing on which game came first.

'How do you argue that a game where the pieces need development is the earlier one and a game where the pieces do not need to be changed is a later one? The chances of that are against game design common sense.'
	Have you never seen an advertisement selling something as - 'new, improved!'? Think of FIDE Chess. Outside variant circles that is generally considered a game that does not need improvement. The reason is that is a product of improvements of something that did need improving. That how it works. Of course a game that needs improving is older than a game based on it but with improvements made. You are not arguining that because FIDE Chess does not need improvement for most players means that it too is older than Chaturanga, are you?

'You say it can be argued that a game not requiring improvement of the movement of the pieces could have been improved from a predecessor. Where is it then?'
	We all agree that the predecessor to Xiang Qi with Cannons was Xiang Qi without. As to what the predecessor to that was, most contributors here seem to say Chaturanga, and you yourself say this earlier middle-file-heavy Xiang Qi.

'Please be more specific when you say that the bishop and queen in their modern form had already been around for centuries.'
	That was not what I said. I was pointing out that those pieces were added to an 8x8 game without them that had, in the form of Chaturanga and Shatranj, existed for many centuries.

I think it is adequately established that both the ashtapada and the Chinese chess board were taken from previous uses, so trying to derive either from the other is pointless.

You say that 'the Spring and Autumn period is the most agreed upon period of time that Xiangqi was originally developed. One of the reasons was because the pieces and the palace concept is from the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. That is 5th-2nd century B.C. That means Xiangqi's believed timeline among Chinese historians who study Xiangqi's history or supposed history, believe the game was first developed around 700-1000 years before Tang dynasty.' This is new to me. Please explain how the pieces and the palace concept are specific to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

More later.

The initial known version of Xiangqi has one minister in front of the
general at the top of the palace and one counselor or scholar behind the
general where the general is located at the start of the game in the modern
version of Xiangqi. I also pointed out that Janggi has the general in the
middle of the palace like in the initial version of Xiangqi which suggests
that having the general or king there is the actual initial placement of
the general/king. Please refer to David Li's book for the diagram for the
initial look of Xiangqi. I am not endorsing the story he tells in his book.
Just pointing out the diagram in the book.

Take the middle column of the palace in Xiangqi, and put the counselor on
the first rank, the general on the 2nd rank, and the minister on the 3rd
rank. That was the original setup. That plus 5 pawns or foot soldiers in
the initial positions and a chariot and horse in the corners of the board.
There were no other pieces on the back rank. Therefore, out of 9 possible
points on the back rank, only 5 of them were occupied.

My point is that the initial version of Xiangqi which I have just described
does NOT look like it is developed from Chaturanga because it has less
pieces and looks less developed with the back rank unfilled. A game with
its back rank filled to begin with is more developed and is probably
developed at a later date, if we assume that Chaturanga and Xiangqi are
related games with similar pieces on different boards.

Once again, a game that has 16 pieces in it to start with is probably more
modern than a game with 12 pieces that eventually became 16 a side also. In
Xiangqi's development, the 2nd counselor and 2nd minister were only added
after a period of time and perhaps at the time the cannons were added. In
Chaturanga, or Persian Chess, or any version of 8x8 chess, all have 2
ministers/bishops to start with suggesting that they appear later in the
timeline of chess. They never had more than one counselor or fers because
there is only 8 spaces on the back rank of an 8x8 board.

I didn't say the first 8x8 game had 2 counselors, but it did have 2
elephants/ministers in it which Xiangqi initially did not have.

How do you argue that a game where the pieces need development is the
earlier one and a game where the pieces do not need to be changed is a
later one? The chances of that are against game design common sense.

If the 1 step moving counselor and 2 step moving minister do not need to be
improved in Xiangqi, that means that those pieces were designed for that
board. If the original chess was from 8x8, why would anyone put those
pieces there? They don't seem to fit. It's more likely that they came
from another game and the game stayed that way for centuries because of
tradition, but the game was not a fully developed game.

You say it can be argued that a game not requiring improvement of the
movement of the pieces could have been improved from a predecessor. Where
is it then? They cannot find a version of Xiangqi earlier than the one I
have just described, and a one step moving counselor seems pretty basic to
me  as well as a 2 step moving minister. Both are about as simple as pieces
as I can think of. What could have preceded a 1 step diagonal moving
counselor? A non-moving counselor that just sits there and cannot move? If
we assume that chess pieces have always been able to move at least 1 space,
there is no piece that could have preceded a 1 step moving piece.

I am not saying that your argument cannot be true. I am just saying that it
is unlikely that the counselor and minister had any kind of movement to it
that could have been different. Only the placement of those pieces and the
number of them changed over time according to the information we have about
Xiangqi's development.

Once again, if we assume that chess games have a common origin, the
earliest known movement of the pieces would probably fit the board its been
placed on. Chaturanga and Xiangqi have similar moving pieces and 2 of them
fit in Xiangqi and do not fit in Chaturanga. That means that those 2 pieces
suggest that they were from Xiangqi and not Chaturanga.

Isn't it common sense that a civilization or person developing a game,
would design movement for pieces that fit the board they are being played
on? No one would do something illogical unless there was a matter of
tradition involved.

As in 8x8 Chess was played with a 2 space diagonal jumping bishop in Europe
for several centuries until the long range bishop was finally accepted as
the standard piece. Russia played with the 2 space moving bishop and the 1
space moving fers for about 2 centuries while Western Europe moved to the
long range bishop and long range queen in the late 15th century. This was
due to tradition that they did not want to break in Russia because chess
had already been played like that for centuries.

There's more than one way for the river to be added and the river to be
taken out. I am not insisting it happened one way or the other. It is quite
easy to look at a 9x10 intersection board with the river in it and just
play within the squares. Any trader traveling between China and Persia can
do that spontaneously and essentially create a different but related game.
It's harder to take the 8x8 board and add the river because that would
take more thinking. My argument is that there is precisely an 8x8 board of
square within a 9x10 intersection board because the river has no lines
going through it so if you count only squares on a 9x10 intersection board,
you get 64.

I am saying that in the timeline of Xiangqi within Chinese historical
circles who do not look at Western sources, there is no one who believes
that Xiangqi was developed during the Tang dynasty which is what the 6-8th
century was in China. Although the specific timeline is not agreed upon
among Chinese scholars, the Spring and Autumn period is the most agreed
upon period of time that Xiangqi was originally developed. One of the
reasons was because the pieces and the palace concept is from the Spring
and Autumn period and the Warring States period. That is 5th-2nd century
B.C. That means Xiangqi's believed timeline among Chinese historians who
study Xiangqi's history or supposed history, believe the game was first
developed around 700-1000 years before Tang dynasty.

This conclusion was not made to counter Western arguments that all forms of
chess were developed from Chaturanga in 6th century A.D. It was made
internally and with no intention of starting a war of words between the
East and West.

I do agree that the 8x8 Chess can be linked back to 6th century India or
2nd century Persia, but there is no reason either from game design
development or anything in history to suggest that Xiangqi is borrowed from
a different game. What we do know is that similar games with similar moving
pieces and slightly different boards popped up in India, Persia, and China
by the 6th century. Which game came from which is a matter of opinion as we
don't have any hard evidence of it going one way or the other.

Therefore, it shouldn't be some hard fact that chess comes from India 6th
century because similar games already appeared in Persia and China 400
years or more before chess is known to have appeared in India.

What do you mean that my argument that games finishing their development at
different points means nothing? We know when the long range bishop and long
range queen were agreed upon to be in the 8x8 game. Late 15th century in
Europe. This is not in dispute. The bishop was taken from the Courier in
Courier Chess in Germany which comes from 13th century approximately.

So what do you mean, in existence for centuries? That seems kind of
generalized.

I am only stating 2 accepted dates of the final development of modern 8x8
Chess in Europe and 9x10 Xiangqi in China.

8x8 Chess in Europe was late 15th century, and Xiangqi was Song dynasty in
China which is about 500 years or more before late 15th century. That
suggests, but does not prove that Xiangqi is an earlier game because it
finished its development much earlier than Chess and did not need to change
the movements of any of its pieces. In fact all Xiangqi did was add the 2
cannons and an extra counselor and minister to finish the game. That was an
easier development than Chess which required more changes.

Not just to the bishop and and queen, but 2 space moving pawns, en passant,
and castling. Moves like castling and en passant, and 2 space moving pawns
are definitely more modern concepts in Chess than anything in Xiangqi which
plays very much more like an archaic game.

Please be more specific when you say that the bishop and queen in their
modern form had already been around for centuries. From which point? If we
go back to the earliest known long range diagonal moving piece in Europe,
it was in Courier Chess played on a 12x8 board which also had the 2 space
moving minister in it also. All of this took place after Xiangqi was
finished in its development. This suggests but does not prove that Xiangqi
has an earlier start date because less work was needed to finish the game.
To believe the opposite is more likely is saying that a game that takes
longer in its development process and needs really special rules like en
passant and castling precedes a game that did not require much change 500
years beforehand.

It's not impossible, but it's unlikely. That's why I think it's silly
that the Western world says with absolute authority that chess comes from
India without a second thought to it and that China and Japan just copied
it. That seems like a bully kind of mentality and not a commitment to
actually studying what most likely happened in history.

Who's claiming that pre-Cannon Xiang Qi closely resembles Chaturanga? Perhaps there really is a Charles Gillman and for some reason I cannot see his comments! For myself I acknowledged that the differences were (a) considerable betwen Chaturanga and any kind of Xiang Qi; (b) considerable between Chaturanga and FIDE Chess; and (c) relatively slight between pre- and post-Cannon Xiang Qi. I simply added that it didn't follow that two considerable changes going west - Xiang Qi to Chaturanga to FIDE Chess - and a slight change in China were any more likely than one considerable change going west - Chaturanga to FIDE Chess - and one going east - Chaturanga to Xiang Qi.
	Saying that the General has 'only 1 counselor and 1 minister on each side' (perhaps that's where the rogue L came from) is puzzling, as that - on the basis that 1 of a piece each side of the General means 2 of that piece in the entire army - is what Xiang Qi still has and therefore there is nothing for it to be 'only' compared to. Or are you saying that there was only one short-range piece on each side, a one-step one on one and a two-step one on the other? If so, this is not a game that appears widely known of based on previous comments.
	I would not say that Chaturanga looks more 'modern' than any kind of Xiang Qi, only that it looks simpler. Why should 8 more pieces (4 aside) be any greater a sign of a more recent game than 26 more positions for them to occupy?
	The first 8x8 game certainly did not have '2 minister and 2 counselors'. It did have two Elephants - the Elephant=Minister pun was specific to China and did not work anywhere else - but there was one Counsellor with two Ls, not two with one each. That one 1-step piece does not fit 8 files as well as two fit 9 files does indeed mean that the latter case had 'no improvement needed', but it does not follow that the game not requiring improvement is the older one. It could equally be argued that the one not requiring improvement had already been improved a lot from some predecessor, and the one still needing improvement had not - and perhaps was that predecessor.
	The point about which change of board is more likely is, as far as I understand, unaffected by any known timeline. Are you saying that there was a time when Xiang Qi was known to exist and Chaturanga known not to? Otherwise what matters is which change seems more natural. Chaturanga's board with 8x8 squares or 9x9 corners had already been long in existence for the older game of Ashtapada. It is easy to imagine versions of this being made as two half-boards, each with 8x4 squares or, as a result of repeating one boundary, 9x5 corners. This is then easy to turn into the Xiang Qi board, complete with something that could be interpreted as the River. It seems far less likely that the River would be invented spontaneously and the Indians then 'take out the river', deliberately or accidentally.
	Your conclusion that 'games that are based on another game, generally will finish its development at a later date than its predecessor' sheds no light on anything. Chess with modern long-range Queens and Bishops was already only 'based on' an 8x8 game that had been in existence for many centuries, regardless of what that earlier game was in turn based on.

@ Charles Gillman Have you seen the pre-cannon version of Xiangqi? It does
not resemble the earliest known version of 8x8 chess in India or Persia
which are basically the same. The earliest pre-cannon version of Xiangqi
has less pieces (12) per side with only 1 counselor and 1 minister on each
side with the general in the middle which does not resemble the first known
version of 8x8 chess anywhere.

It's assumed that the earliest known version of chess in India is the
first game and all games are derived from that, but why are there already
16 pieces in that game with 2 ministers/elephants? The game is more modern
looking than the first version of Xiangqi which suggests that it comes
after Xiangqi and not before.

If something looks older and has less pieces in its setup, it probably
predates a more modern looking formation, not the other way around.

The first version of 8x8 chess in Persia and India looks like a modern
version of Xiangqi with 2 minister and 2 counselors in it. The position of
the pieces is more similar. That suggests that the first version of 8x8
chess is derived from a more modern version of Xiangqi. That means 8x8 came
after the first known version of Xiangqi.

This assumption that the Chinese drastically changed a game that was
developed in India by moving to intersection points and putting in a
palace, river, and cannons goes against common sense if you look at the
timelines of the 2 games.

If Xiangqi's earliest known version had slow moving pieces like a 1 space
diagonal counselor (fers in 8x8 chess) and a 2 space moving minister
(elephant in 8x8 chess), then that means those pieces had to have come from
one game or the other originally. The fact that there was no improvement
needed for those 2 pieces in Xiangqi means that those pieces come from that
9x10 board to begin with.

That is not radical change. That means origin. If one is to argue that the
1 space moving counselor and 2 space moving minister came from 8x8 and were
moved to 9x10, then this a more hard pressed argument, because those pieces
never fit that game well to begin with which is why it took longer for
those pieces to evolve into the long range bishop and long range queen.

That is why Xiangqi's development ends around the year 800-900 A.D. and
Chess does not finish its development until 15th Century A.D. in Europe.

That means that those pieces were NOT developed for that 8x8 board no
matter how simple that board looks with the 64 squares. That means they
were borrowed from another game and needed to be altered to fit the new
board.

Therefore, based on the movement of the original chess pieces which had 1
or 2 counselors, and 1 minister with a 2nd being added later, the 9x10
board appears to pre-date the 8x8 board and it looks like the pieces on the
9x10 board were simply moved from the intersection points to the squares
and the river was not counted.

If you take out the river in Xiangqi and just count squares, you get 8x8.
Easy enough.

It would be harder for someone or a group of people to take the 8x8 board
and add a river in between as well as a palace.

Shogi which plays more like FIDE Chess or actually like Makruk, is
obviously a descendant of South East Asian Chess which is played in squares
on the 8x8 board, but the Japanese used a 9x9 square board instead. Shogi
finished its development in the 1600's.

Therefore, games that are based on another game, generally will finish its
development at a later date than its predecessor. This is not contrary to
common sense.

Xiangqi finished its development 500 years before 8x8 Chess in Europe, and
Shogi finished its development about 100 years after Chess in Europe.
Therefore, it is likely that 8x8 Chess comes from 9x10 Xiangqi, and 9x9
Shogi comes from 8x8 Chess or Makruk specifically.

The addition of cannons has really nothing to do with the discussion
between whether the original game is from Persia, India, or China. It's a
well known fact that the cannon was added in the Song dynasty which is a
few hundred years after chess appeared in India. By that time there was
already 8x8 in Persia and India, and 9x10 in China and/or Korea, so the
cannons don't really address which one came first or which one came from
which.

It is a fact that Xiangqi finished its development in the Song dynasty
which is at least 500 years before 8x8 finished its development in Europe,
so in the case of chess, the development of Xiangqi finished earlier, so
development of these 2 games was faster in China.

Regarding the 2 boards, it's possible to develop either from each other,
but my main point from the beginning has always been the apparently out of
place counselor in 8x8 chess. It moves 1 space diagonally and seems out of
place. The counselor in Xiangqi has a specific role to defend either the
side or the front of the general. In Xiangqi's original setup, the
counselor or scholar was behind the general (which was in the center of the
palace like in Janggi).

My point has always been the original pieces of both games are designed for
the 9x10 board and are out of place on the 8x8 board with no palace
suggesting that 8x8 is from 9x10 and not the other way around.

If you look at the Grand Chess page, the guy who designed the game writes
about how the original 8x8 pieces don't seem to fit the board, so the long
range bishop was developed, and the counselor or queen was improved to
combine the powers of a bishop and rook.

So its not as simple an issue of whether an 8x8 board is more intuitive or
a 9x10 intersection board. We also need to look at the earliest known
version of Xiangqi with just 1 counselor and 1 minister and the earliest
known version of 8x8 chess in India which already had 2 ministers
(elephants) with the back row filled out with pieces. The earliest known
version of Xiangqi has less pieces (12 per side) than 8x8 chess in India
(16 per side). Less pieces suggest an earlier game.

I've been talking to people with some knowledge of Xiangqi in Taiwan and
there does not appear to be any definitive description of the game detailed
enough in literature to confirm its origins before chess in India or Persia
as far as I know. There are references towards people playing some sort of
qi (chess game), but that could mean any kind of board game involving
pieces.

It is believed that the game is from the Spring and Autumn period and is
around 2,000 years old and did not finish its development until the Song
dynasty. Please remember, that this is just the general Chinese belief of
their own game and was not created to dispute the European theory that
Chess is from India in the 6th century. It is an internal Chinese opinion.
I'm not saying it is necessarily correct, but I am saying that this is a
general belief because many things were invented at that time and the game
is not believed to have a foreign origin.

Another interesting thing I heard is that the xiang in Xiangqi does not
mean elephant. It is from the word qi xiang. I mean the 2 characters put
together that mean weather. qi as in air. xiang as in image. qi xiang can
mean weather as in weather report, and other words related to the weather,
but qi xiang means 'atmosphere' or 'mood' in regards to the game.

If this is correct, it is totally not correct to say that Xiangqi is the
elephant's game and that the elephant was imported from India.

If you know Chinese, it's very believable that there are a number of
interpretations possible for a single chinese characters, and the xiang
character that is used for elephant only means elephant when it is with the
character for 'large', or da xiang.

This is not evidence that Xiangqi was developed in the Spring and Autumn
period of course, but it does suggest that the origin or at least the name
of the game has nothing to do with elephants and therefore the original
version of 8x8 chess in India does not seem to have any direct influence on
Xiangqi, because the xiang piece which is written 2 different ways in a
Xiangqi set, does not mean elephant on either side. One side means zai
xiang or prime minister, and the other xiang could be from the name of the
game as it has the same sound as xiang from zai xiang.

In Chinese people's understanding of the minister, it is meant to be a
government official who stays in his own countryside and does not cross the
river to the other side. He moves exactly 2 spaces to show that he has a
high rank and can move swiftly about his own country as opposed to the
scholars who stay inside the palace only and can only move 1 space.

Therefore, for the purposes of our discussion here, the existence of an
elephant in Persian and Indian Chess should not be used a strong piece of
evidence that chess originated in India.

Anyway, I need to learn more, but so far, I have not seen much from the
history of Xiangqi that would suggest that it was derived from Indian or
Persian 8x8 chess.

Hey, i've noticed something about this mahabharata verse, and i don't think we have been looking at it in the right context. I'll tell you why.

First of all, to understand exactly what Yudhishthira is saying in this verse, you have to know what is going on in his life at this time. He and his brothers have just spent 12 years in exile and have one more year to go, but if they are detected in this final year, they must spend another 13 years in exile. So they plan to spend the final year in disguise, living in the city of Virata. So now, each brother speaks, telling the others ....

1. how they are going to disguise themselves
2. how they will spend their time in this disguise and go undetected till the year ends.

With this in mind, let's look at what Yudhishthira says. Sentences 1 and 2 ...

(1). Yudhishthira replied, 'Ye sons of the Kuru race, ye bulls among men, hear what I shall do on appearing before king Virata.  (2). Presenting myself as a Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become a courtier of that high-souled king. 

ok, this is clear, Yudhishthira tells his brothers how he plans to disguise himself as a pro-gamer, so to speak. Now sentences 3 and 4.

(3). And moving upon boards beautiful pieces made of ivory, of blue and 
yellow and red and white hue, by throws of black and red dice. (4). I shall entertain the king with his courtiers and friends. 

Now the 3rd sentence here is the one we are always told Yudhisthira describes a game, however, this is not true, Yudhisthira is actually describing HIMSELF PLAYING A GAME. He is telling his brothers how he will be passing his days in the king's court playing games. It is one thing to describe a game, but it is another thing to describe yourself playing a game, they are two different things. And look at the 4th sentence, it follows on from the 3rd, it shows the outcome of his playing games, he shall entertain the king.

In the 5th and 6th sentences, Yudhisthira then says how he will be undetected.

(5) And while I shall continue to thus delight the king, nobody will succeed in discovering me. (6) And should the monarch ask me, I shall say, 'Formerly I was the bosom friend of Yudhishthira.' 

And look at the last sentence ....

(7) I tell you that it is thus that I shall pass my days (in the city of Virata).

He finishes telling them 'it is thus that i shall pass my days ..'.

When you understand he is describing himself playing a game, rather than the game itself, it isn't such a big deal he has used the word 'board' instead of a more specific term. How many of us today use the word 'board' instead of 'chessboard', and as far as not describing the piece movements, what is the point?  If we ask these questions, 'why not board specific word' and 'why not describe piece movements', i think we are clearly not understanding what Yudhisthira is telling his brothers.

If you read the Mahabharata after Yudhisthira finishes, all his other brothers speak, telling how they will disguise themselves and how they pass their days in this disguise. Also, looking at the 3rd sentence of Yudhisthira, note his words 'And moving upon boards' and 'by throws of black and red dice'. He is painting a picture of himself playing the game. You will note in this sentence, he describes what the pieces are made of, the colors of the pieces, even the color of the dice, all the visuals.

Also i think it is interesting he says 'beautiful pieces', though you can conclude nothing from it. It is more easily imaginable this describes chess-like pieces rather than Pachisi pieces, though as i said, this proves nothing. Oh, one more thing, i think there is also no doubt Yudhisthira's brothers knew very well the game he was talking about playing.

So i think i have to go back to what i originally thought, this game could be a pachisi type game or it could be chaturaji.

yeah it does seem strange after a pretty detailed description of the game no info on pieces is given.
Pachisi doesn't sit too well either does it, because of the dice maybe? 
i looked on wiki about that game and it says it is played with 'shell' thingies for dice, and you use 6 or 7 of them to roll or each roll?
i'm guessing though you could play with dice?

hey john you don't have an exact quote from murray about this verse do you?
i'll post soon what i have concluded about this verse too, there's a couple of questions i have also about it.

Yudhishthira replied, 'Ye sons of the Kuru race, ye bulls among men, hear
what I shall do on appearing before king Virata. Presenting myself as a
Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become
a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards
beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue,
by throws of black and red dice. I shall entertain the king with his
courtiers and friends. And while I shall continue to thus delight the
king, nobody will succeed in discovering me. And should the monarch ask
me, I shall say, 'Formerly I was the bosom friend of Yudhishthira.' I
tell you that it is thus that I shall pass my days.

Now replaceing 'chess-boards' with 'boards' and 'pawns' with 'pieces', 
we still have a very interesting verse here!

It is true there is not very much detail here, about the game, but that 
is to be expected. There is a drama going on in the life of Yudhishthira 
and his brothers, and he is explaining how he will disguise himself. That 
is the main purport of his talk. So, let's look at what we have about the game.

We have a game, played with dice, on a board, with pieces of four specified colors. There is no mention of piece movements at all, but, this is to be expected isn't it, Yudhishthira is talking about how he will disguise himself, not talking really about the game, which is not the main point.

Now John, you say .. 'So we have a gameboard, dice, and pieces of four specified colors but NO MENTION OF DIFFERENT TYPES. Not chess, probably pachisi.'
I don't understand why you say 'not chess, probably pachisi', can you explain why you say this. It seems to me that a game with dice, board, and pieces of 4 different colors could be 'Chaturaji'.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Jason, I have excised a small part of your otherwise
well-written discussion. What I have done is remove opinions on a non-chess
topic. I understand people have strong opinions on many topics, but we get
heated up enough about chess here, and site rules specifically state
non-chess topics may be removed. I will do so when I feel it is in the best
interests of the site. Should you or anyone wish an explanation of my
decisions, please contact me at the email address listed on my person ID
page. Joe Joyce, editor, TCVP
******************************************
I believe that Xiangqi originates from China, but I did not come here to
say that the Persian and Indian versions are definitely copied from it.
It's assumed in Western chess origin discussions, that Chess originates
from India and that Far East Asian countries like China, Korea, and Japan
all copied it. That's the assumption I am pointing out here as being a
superiority thing.

The truth is that Westerners play Western chess on an 8x8 board. Therefore,
most would rather believe that the original game was the 8x8 game and not
some 9x10 intersection game played in dirty Chinatowns all over the world.

It's the same thing with Chinese people. They would rather believe that
their game came first. Gives them a sense of pride. I talk to a lot of
Chinese people about this, and they definitely prefer to believe their game
is an original design.

In more objective analyses on chess origin, documentation seems to support
India, archeology seems to support Persian, and game design seems to
support China.

The game design aspects I have been repeating like a broken record because
no one is acknowledging the really common sense things I am pointing out,
support a Chinese theory but do not prove a Chinese origin.

The British controlled all of India and Hong Kong is just a small part of
China. India was Britain's crown colony. So it's not the same situation.

The whole Xiangqi vs. Western Chess debate also extends into which game is
more complex and well designed. I have met many Westerners who immediately
bash Xiangqi as being a more simple game where the pieces don't move as
far as the bishop and queen. Xiangqi also has an incompetent horse that
can't even jump.

Well, the average number of moves to finish a Chess game is around 40 and
Xiangqi is around 47. The game tree complexity of Xiangqi is also about 20%
higher, but these facts are not considered of course. It's because of the
no-perptual check rule in Xiangqi that the game tree complexity is 20%
higher which artificially inflates the complexity! Not because of the
larger board of course. 

I don't know that much about archeology and documentation and what is
considered legitimate, but I do have common sense, and anyone who plays
these 2 games will feel that the Western chess game is more modern and
evolved. That means newer!

When teaching Xiangqi to Westerners over here, they feel that Xiangqi feels
more archaic because the pieces are more limited. That implies that the
game is older, and not newer.

I am talking about the game design aspect of course. If 2 games are
obviously related, the one with pieces that feels more archaic is probably
the older game. If you look at Courier Chess (the German 12x8 game) it is
obviously older than the modern version of the 8x8 game because of the
limited movement of many of the pieces. Without knowing the history of
Courier Chess and 8x8 Modern Chess, one can tell that Courier Chess is
older.

Why don't these common sense things apply to Xiangqi as well?

Forgive me for repeating a broken record, but it is fairly well recognized
that the best version of the 8x8 game was not finalized until the late
1400's when the modern queen and bishop were both used at the same time,
and the final version of Xiangqi came about in the Song Dynasty which is
about 500 years earlier.

Based on this game development timeline of the 2 games, which game most
likely came first? A game that finished its development 500 years after
another one or the one that finished its development 500 years before?

This is not rock solid proof, but it certainly suggests that the commonly
accepted India origin may be suspect based on a game design point of view.

So does anyone want to discuss the origin issue from a game design
standpoint, or are you guys going to attack me personally for suggesting
that this is a racist issue?

Let's take the minister/bishop/elephant piece for example. There was a
great deal of experimentation with this piece for around 1,000 years. There
was the Silver General move, which exists in Shogi and Thai Chess, there
was the 2 space diagonal jump move, and also a 2 space orthogonal jump for
this piece.

That means that between India, Persia, and Europe, it seems that we didn't
know quite what to do with this piece before settling on the long range
bishop.

Now, the Xiangqi minister or elephant if you will, has always had that same
exact movement which is 2 spaces diagonal and in the final modern version,
the 2 ministers are placed on the same diagonal so they support each other.
In Xiangqi history, the starting position and number of ministers changed,
but not the movement as far as I know.

So from a game design standpoint, if we assume the minister in Xiangqi and
bishop in 8x8 chess have a common origin, which game was it originally
designed for? A game where it did not undergo any change (movement wise) in
its entire history, or a game where there were at least 3 different
versions of it and didn't get fully developed until like almost 1,000
years later in Europe.

The jumping bishop couldn't even capture its counterpart because the 2
pieces will end up jumping over each other. That doesn't sound like good
game design to me. That seems like the piece was not designed for that
board, so the movement of the piece needed to be changed. It needed to
evolve into a piece that could move 1 or more spaces, so that bishops on
the same diagonal could capture each other and not always jump over each
other.

One more thing about elephants. Please keep in mind that Xiangqi pieces
originally did not have color, so the pieces were written with different
Han Chinese characters to distinguish them. Xiang (Prime Minister) rhymes
with Xiang (elephant), and the minister piece is supposed to simulate what
a high level gov't. official does in his own countryside. It stays near
home and doesn't go across the river to the other side.

Who would design an elephant piece that was mostly defensive? War elephants
are not defensive in real warfare. So the elephant debate does not apply to
Xiangqi.

Does anyone want to talk about game design and the evolution of pieces on
different boards?

I'm not here to try to present documentation of a Chinese source that
Xiangqi 'does not' come from India. Such documentation does not exist
probably, because no Chinese documentation would feel the need to say such
a thing literally because they probably never considered the possibility.

Just because Murray writes a big book on the Indian origin theory, doesn't
mean I need to provide a Chinese source that says it's not the case that
China copied India. I'm just looking at the bigger picture from another
point of view.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, the Chinese in general do not say that
the West copied chess from them, but just feel Xiangqi is their own game.
But the reverse is not true. The common notion in the West is that Xiangqi
comes from India as do all forms of chess.

I'm not even saying that India and Persia copied China. I'm just saying
that Xiangqi seems to be older for a lot of common sense reasons.

'Anyway, Li's book presents all the Western arguments which are always based on the indisputable assumption that India is first or else the white man loses face...' It seems to me that the British might have felt (not that I can discuss this with any nineteenth-century British) that they would lose face if they had chess from their own Indian subjects. I get the impression that they thought China more civilized and respectable than India.

As for Dr. Li's assertion that chess survived underground at the Imperial Court for eight hundred years, this is as completely unsupported as everything else he says about chess before the Tang Dynasty.

The two supposed chess pieces from Russia from the second century are actually from Uzbekistan (Dalverzin Tepe). They are an elephant and a bull, so they are not generally accepted as chess pieces. The earliest generally accepted chess pieces are also from Uzbekistan (Afrasiab, right by Samarkand), from the eighth (Christian) century. There are seven of them, covering all six ranks.

As for the Chinese naval expeditions of exploration some six centuries ago, I accept that they happened; they left archeological evidence here and there. We wicked westerners didn't destroy the records, the Chinese did. I have already stated that the Chinese originated gunpowder, rockets, and printing with movable type, and we have them from China. By the way, I have a Chihuahua. According to sources including the Wikipedia, archeology has found remains of dogs of this type, but larger, in Mexico in the centuries before the Spanish Conquest. Our small Chihuahuas are supposed to be derived from the pre-Conquest dogs crossed with Chinese miniatures brought by the Conquistadors. I asked for any evidence that the Conquistadors, or for that matter the Spanish of that period, had Chinese miniature dogs. Profound silence. I suggested that the Chinese miniature dogs had more likely been brought by the Chinese in the generations before the Spanish Conquest. Continued profound silence.

Jason, the rest of us have disclaimed any investment in whether chess originated in China, India, Iran, Bactria, or Antarctica. You are the only one--the only one!--who has suggested that pinning down the location where chess originated would say anything about the superiority of one nation over another.

Chess was created by King Arthur, originally in the form we have it in now. When Queen Guinevere slept with Lancelot, Arthur decided the Queen was too powerful and reduced her power in the game. The game reached India through one of the knights of the round table who went there looking for the holy grail. In the meantime, the game became lost in Britain, because Arthur was killed by his own son Mordred, who never had a close enough bond with his father to learn the game from him. Since the Indians were savage heathens who worshiped animals instead of the one true God, they replaced the Bishops with Elephants. They also didn't understand rules like castling, because they had no castles, and en passant, because they didn't speak French. So they left those rules out. From there, the game spread to China and Persia. Because the Chinese were also heathens, their form of the game became even more corrupted. But since Islam had some affinity with the one true religion, even if it was a heresy, the Muslims preserved the Indian form without corruption. When the game came to Europe, where the one true religion had made its home, white Christians, with the help of God, were able to discern the true form of the game and return it to the ideal form originally created by King Arthur. So all hail Britannia. Britannia rules the waves. Uber alles Britannia. Oh, and speaking of how wonderful the British are, why did we ever overthrow them in this country? It just makes no sense. We should be putting Queen Elizabeth II on all our money, or better yet, King Arthur. And isn't it about time that we made English the official language of the United States? Does anyone really need another language? Wouldn't this more easily facilitate the spread of British culture to the rest of the world, which, of course, would be good for everyone, seeing as how all good things stem from Britain?

Jason, You're sounding like a broken record. You keep repeating the same insubstantial and fallacious arguments. If the Chinese historical record shows that Xiangqi is not of Indian origin, show us this. Don't complain that westerners will not read Chinese sources when you cannot even produce one single Chinese source to back up what you're saying. Peter Banaschak has carefully looked into the Chinese sources on Xiangqi, as described in this article on his website, and he has not found adequate evidence that Xiangqi is earlier than Chaturanga.

Also, let me reiterate that the white man has no stake in whether the brown man or the yellow man created the original version of Chess. It is true that India was part of the British Empire. But so was Hong Kong. If it is at all prestigious for the British for them to think that Chess comes from India, it would be just as prestigious for them to think that it came from China, which Hong Kong is a part of. And if the British were really so motivated by racism to dishonestly claim an Indian origin for Chess, why didn't they just claim a European origin or a British origin for Chess? You keep trying to frame this as a racial issue, but it is not one.

And where did you pick up the idea that Americans believe all good things come from Europe, or by extension regions of the British Empire? It's ridiculous. I'm an American, and I've never met any other American who has claimed such a thing.