Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/611

Rh attributed to it. Certainly, internal evidences seem to contradict the view of Sir William Jones s manuscript being a very ancient testimony ; for it mentions two great sages, Vyasa and Gotama, the former as teaching chaturanga to Prince Yudhishthira, and the other as giving an opinion upon certain principles of the game ; but this could not well be, seeing that it was played with dice, and all games of hazard were positively forbidden by Menu. It would appear also that Indian manuscripts cannot be absolutely relied on in evidence of the antiquity of their contents ; for the climate has the effect of destroying such writings in a period of 300 or 400 years. They must therefore be from time to time re-copied, and in this way later interpolations might easily creep in. Yon der Lasa, who had, in an article prefixed to the Uandbuch in 1864, accepted Forbes s views, withdraws his support in a review of the work just noticed, published in the September and November numbers of the Deutsche Schachzeitung, 1874, and expresses his adherence to the opinions set forth by Van der Linde. Altogether, therefore, we find the best authorities agreeing that chess existed in India before it is known to have been played anywhere else, a fact which naturally leads them to fix upon that country as its probable birth place. In this supposition they are strengthened by the names of the game and of some of the pieces. Shatranj, as Forbes has well pointed out, is a foreign word among the Persians and Arabians, whereas its natural derivation from the term chaturanga will strike an ordinarily educated as well as a scholarly mind. Again, al-fil, the Arabic name of the bishop, means the elephant, otherwise aleph- hind, the Indian ox. As to how long chess has really existed, unless we choose to rely upon evident myths and old fables, we shall find no ground whatever for attributing to it the great antiquity that some have maintained. Our earliest authority is Masudi, an Arabic author who wrote about 950 A..D. According to him, shatranj had existed long before his time ; but the spirit of historic criticism will not permit of our unreservedly accepting his testimony in that regard. Say that he may speak not only for his own generation but for a couple of centuries before, and that will give an existence to chess of over a thousand years, a respectable period of time enough, and one to be satisfied with until a greater duration be proved. CHESS IN EARLY AND MEDIEVAL TIMES. The dimness which shrouds from view the origin of chess naturally obscures also its early history. All kinds of fables and legends lie in the way of the inquirer, and obstruct his progress, so that until a comparatively recent date a firm historical foundation is not to be found. We have seen that chess crossed over from India into Persia, and became known in the latter country by the name of shatranj. Some have understood that word to mean &quot; the play of the king ; &quot; but undoubtedly Sir William Jones s derivation carries with it the most plausibility, if indeed his reasons may not be said to amount to a demonstration of the correctness of his view. But how and when the game was introduced into Persia we have no means of knowing. True, the Persian poet Firdusi, in his historical poem, the Shahnama, gives an account of the introduction of shatranj into Persia in the reign of Naushirawan (Chosroes), to whom came ambassadors from the sovereign of Hind, i.e., India, with a chess-board and men, asking him to solve if he could the secrets of the game, and otherwise to pay tribute. Naushirawan was the contemporary of Justinian, and reigned in the 6th century of our era. Professor Forbes seems to think that this poem may be looked upon as substantially an authentic history and credited as such. This appears, however, to be somewhat dangerous, especially as Firdusi lived some 450 years 599 after the supposed event took place. Other Persian and Arabian writers state that shatranj came into Persia frem India, and there appears, as we have seen, such a consensus of opinion as may be considered to settle that part of the question. &quot;We have then the game passing from the Hindus to the Persians, thence to the Arabians after they took possession of Persia in the 7th century, and from whom directly or indirectly it came to various parts of Europe, at a time which cannot be definitely fixed upon, but which was either in or before the llth century. That the source of the European game is Arabic is clearly enough deducible, not merely from the words &quot; check &quot; and &quot; mate, &quot; which are evidently from Shah mat, but also from the names of some of the pieces, to be noticed further on. There are various chess legends having reference to the 7th and 8th centuries, but these may be passed by as presenting no appearance of historical verity ; and equally unworthy of credence appear the many Oriental and Occidental romances which revolve around those two great central figures, Harun al Rashid and Charlemagne. There is no proof that either of them knew anything of chess, or, so far as the latter is concerned, that it had been introduced into Europe in his time. True, there is an account given in Gustavus Selenus, taken from various old chronicles, as to the son of Prince Okar or Otkar of Bavaria having been killed by a blow on the temple struck by a son of Pepin after a game of chess ; and there is another well-known tradition as to the magnificent chess-board and set of men said to have been sent over as a present by the Empress Irene to Charlemagne. But both tales are not less mythical than the romance which relates how the great Frankish monarch lost his kingdom over a game of chess to Guerin de Montglave ; for Van der Linde shows that there was no Bavarian prince of the name of Okar or Otkar at the period alluded to, and in an equally relentless manner the sceptical Dutch writer breaks down the tradition about Irene s chessmen. With respect to Harun al Rashid, among the various stories told which connect him with chess, there is one that at first sight may seem entitled to some degree of credit. In the annals of the Moslems by Abulfeda, there is given a copy of a letter stated to be &quot; From Nicephorus, emperor of the Romans, to Harun, sovereign of the Arabs,&quot; which (using Professor Forbes s translation) after the usual compliments, runs thus : &quot; The empress (Jrene) into whose place I have succeeded, looked upon you as a Rukh and herself as a mere Pawn, therefore she submitted to pay you a tribute more than the double of which she ought to have exacted from you. All this has been owing to female weakness and timidity. Now, however, I insist that you, immediately on reading this letter, repay to me all the sums of money you ever received from her. If you hesitate, the sword shall settle our accounts.&quot; Harun s reply, written on the back of the Byzantine emperor s letter, was terse and to the point. It ran thus: &quot; In the name of God the merciful and gracious. From Harun, the commander of the faithful, to the Roman dog Nicephorus. I have read thine epistle, thou son of an infidel mother ; my answer to it thou shalt see, not hear.&quot; Harun was as good as his word, for he marched immediately as far as Heraclea, devastating the Roman territories with fire and sword, and soon compelled Nicephorus to sue for peace. Now the points which give authority to this narrative and the alleged correspondence are that the relations which they assume between Irene and Xicephorus on the one hand and the warlike caliph on the other are confirmed by the history of those times, while, also, the straightforward brevity of Harun s reply commends itself as what one might expect from his soldier-like character. Still, the fact must be remembered, that Abulfeda lived about five centuries after the time to which he refers.