From: "World Chess Championship", INTERNET:newsletter@mark-weeks.com
Date: 00/01/15, 08:37 
Re:   Chess History on the Web (2000 no.2)
 
The next review, following the Chess History bookmarks, is for 'The Origin
of Chess' by Gerhard Josten. The small site at
http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/ is a collection of ten essays on
various theories of the origin of chess. Three of the essays are authored
by Josten. The rest are authored by a star-studded slate of chess
historians.
 
The lead essay is 'My Personal Interest' by Josten. It mentions the
Initiative Group Koenigstein (IGK), which is 'concerned with research into
the entire history of chess'. The short essay is a one paragraph overview
of the history of the origin of chess, followed by a summary of Josten's
opinions.
 
'The State of Chess Research' by Egbert Meissenburg describes some
practical problems related to research into the origin of chess. In
journalistic style, he reduces the problem to 'Five Questions 1) Who? 2)
Where? 3) When? 4) How? 5) Why?' & provides some thinking related to each
of the questions. Without explaining what it is, he briefly rises the
concept of 'protochess', a theoretical forerunner of known chess variants.
 
'The Birthplace of Chess - Some Reflections' by Kenneth Whyld presents
arguments for & against the theory of India as the birthplace of chess.
Several points turn on the 'Firdausi legend', which can be found at
http://www.avesta.org/pahlavi/chatrang.htm. Whyld's essay is the shortest
of the ten.
 
'Thoughts on the Origin of Chess' by Joseph Needham, a Cambridge
Sinologist, is a difficult piece which concludes 'we are brought to the
conclusion that the recreational game of chess, and the magnetic compass,
with all that flowed from it, took their origin at a single point -
namely, a group of divination techniques in ancient Chinese
proto-science'. Needham is the group's chief proponent of China as the
birthplace of chess.
 
'How I Reorientated My Chess Beliefs' by Pavle Bidev describes how he made
the transition from India as origin to China as origin. 'Needham & Co.
convinced me very late that they had discovered a kind of official record
of the invention of chinese protochess, Hsiang Hsi, in 569.' And later,
'Indeed, India is a chess Sahara Desert for archaeological finds, written
documents, literature, early references, legends in folklore, or anything
akin. China actually abounds in all of the afore-mentioned.'
 
'Some Facts to Think About' by Dr. Ricardo Calvo presents a case for
Persia as the origin:-
- 'Fact 1 : Indian literature has no early mentions of chess but Persian
literature does.'
- 'Fact 2 : India has no early chess pieces but Persia does.'
- 'Fact 3 : The Arabs introduced chess in India after taking "Shatrang"
from Persia.'
- 'Fact 4 : Etymology is unclear.'
- 'Another hint is the nomenclature of the piece...'
 
'Is Chess Mentioned in the Talmud?' by Victor Keats is further support for
Persia. 'The Babylonian Talmud was a product of the Jewish settlements on
Persian territory [...] As a systematic and conscious endeavour to record
the history, laws and customs of the Jews, the Talmud provides an
authentic account of the social life of its time. It was finalized in
about AD 500.'
 
'To the Question of the Origin of Chess' by Yuri Averbakh offers a
different approach to determine the origin of chess. 'The history of chess
cannot be studied without a proper knowledge of the history of other board
games. First it is necessary to observe the games which had come into
existence before chess appeared. Only after that we are able to understand
the sources and reasons which guided to the origin of chess.'
 
Josten again takes the wheel with 'My Actual Conclusions in 1998', where
he gives his own answers to Meissenburg's five questions:-
- 'Who? Not king and not a lonely wise man, but Persian, Indian, and
Chinese travellers in combined effort with local inhabitants created chess
as a game of the roads.'
- 'Where? [...] At a central market place somewhere along the silk road in
commutation with the neighboured regions.'
- 'When? At some time when all structural elements were in existence, and
in some further evolution.'
- 'How? By joy with experiments.'
- 'Why? [...] to pass the travellor's and trader's time when climate did
not allow travelling on.'
 
The last essay is the longest of the ten, because it combines three
independent articles. The first, 'The End of Colonialism in Chess' by
Josten, equates the theory of India as the birthplace of chess to British
colonialism -- 'In terms of chess history, Hyde thus embodies the
beginning, Jones the climax and Murray the end of British colonialism.'
The second, a short letter by Francisco Cano, raises the theory of 'The
Origin of Chess in Egypt?', but presents no real evidence to support the
theory. The third, 'A Speculative Theory of Early Chess Structure and
Evolution' by Jean-Louis Cazaux, remarks that 'not enough work has been
done in trying to analyse the structure of the game' & outlines an
approach for doing so. Cazaux also mentions an interesting site at
http://www.zillions-of-games.com/index.html.
 
What's my personal conclusion after reading these essays? That the origin
of chess is just as interesting as the game itself. And that the solutions
to both problems may be equally intractable.
 
Bye for now,
Mark Weeks