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The History of Chess. H. J. R. Murray
Читать онлайн.Название The History of Chess
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isbn 4064066383275
Автор произведения H. J. R. Murray
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But by far the most frequent use of ivory is for the manufacture of men for chess and nard. Several of the chessmen are figures of men or animals, a span high and big, or even more. During the game a man stands by, specially to carry the men from one square to the other. When the Indians play at chess or nard, they wager stuffs or precious stones. But it sometimes happens that a player, after losing all his possessions, will wager one of his limbs. For this they set beside the players a small copper vessel over a wood fire, in which is boiled a reddish ointment peculiar to the country, which has the property of healing wounds and stanching the flow of blood. If the man who wagered one of his fingers loses, he cuts off the finger with a dagger, and then plunges his hand in the ointment and cauterizes the wound. Then he returns to the game. If the luck is against him he sacrifices another finger, and sometimes a man who continues to lose will cut off in succession all his fingers, his hand, his fore-arm, his elbow, and other parts of his body. After each amputation he cauterizes the wound with the ointment, which is a curious mixture of ingredients and drugs peculiar to India, of extraordinary effectiveness. The custom of which I have spoken is a notorious fact.
At the present day games of chance are among the most popular of Indian games, and are associated with religious festivals, especially with those in which it is necessary to keep watch the whole night through.33
The ashṭāpada is also mentioned in an account of a game between Sakuni and Yudhishthira in Amarachandra’s Bālabhārata (II. v. 10 ff). In this game two dice (respectively red and black) are used, and each player has an ashṭāpada upon which he throws his die.34 The game was played with pieces (sāri), of which half were red and the other half were black. These are moved in obedience to the throws of the dice; the ‘clatter’ which they make when placed upon the new position is mentioned, and the sāri are compared to monarchs, since like these they are set up, moved, taken captive, and released.
It seems clear that we have to do here with a game of the race-game class. We may find some confirmation for this conclusion from the comparative study of other Asiatic board-games in which dice are used to define the movements of the men. In India itself there exist a number of examples of games of this class, of which the best known are the games pachīsī and chaupur, which are played upon a four-armed board.
Games of this type appear to have been practised over the greater part of the world from the earliest times. A wide selection of examples is to be found in Mr. Stewart Culin’s books on games.35 The underlying principle is practically the same in all. The board is arranged so that the divisions or points constitute a track along which the men (in Asia commonly called horses or dogs) are moved in obedience to the throws of the dice or equivalent implements (e.g. staves, shells, seeds, teetotums). The players, who may be two or more in number, are each given a certain number of men whom they have to enter on, move through, and remove from the board in a prescribed manner. Any player can remove, with certain limitations, an opponent’s man from the board by playing one of his own men to the point occupied by the former, and the man so removed has to commence again from the beginning. The player who first succeeds in removing all his men from the board after completing his appointed track, wins the game.
Probably the oldest and simplest Asiatic game of this type is the game for two players which we call backgammon. It is now played with little variety over all Southern Asia, from Syria to Japan. Chinese records mention its introduction from India with the name t‘shu p‘u (= Skr. chatush-pada, mod. Indian chaupur) as early as 220–65 A.D. Weber36 has collected a number of references to games of this character from early Indian literature, the earliest being from the Mahābhāshya, in a passage in which Patañjali discusses Pāṇini’s explanation of the word ayānayīna,37 in which the termination -ina has the force of ‘to move to’.
Board for Pachīsī and Chaupur.38
Gavalata Board (Culin, C. & P. C., 851).
Ashta Kashte Board (Falk., 265).
It was possibly the desire to frame a game for four players on similar lines which led to the invention of the four-armed and square boards of which we have several Indian examples. All these boards exhibit a further modification in the special markings that are placed on particular squares. The device is not peculiar to Indian games: it represents an obvious way of adding additional interest to the game which occurred independently to players in many regions. A man which is played to one of these cross-cut squares is treated differently from one played to an unmarked point. It may secure the option of a shorter route home, as in the Corean nyout. It may secure immunity from capture so long as it occupies that point, as in these Indian games, and indeed in the majority of Asiatic race-games. It may be penalized by being compelled to return to the starting-point again, as in the American games of this class. It may be subjected to other penalties, or be given other privileges, as in the various race or promotion games which are invented annually in Europe, America, and elsewhere.
Board, Dice, and Men used in Saturankam (chaturanga), (Parker, 695).
Sīga Board (Parker, 607), The arrows show the direction of the moves. [The same game is in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, 1. c. 5708a, as Sadurañgam.]
Although specially arranged for four players, these games can easily be adapted to use by two players only, and the Indian games of which I give diagrams are often so used. The Ceylon game Gavalata is played by two or four players. When two play, the men enter at A and B respectively, when four, the centre point on each side is the point of entry for one of the players. Each player has one or two cowries instead of men, and four or five cowries are used instead of dice. The men move in the direction of the arrows, and the object is to traverse all the squares to the centre. A player returns an adversary to the starting-point when he plays one of his men to the same point occupied by the adversary, unless it stands on a cross-cut square, or castle. Sīga, which Mr. Parker (Ancient Ceylon, London, 1909, 607) describes as played in Colombo, is the same game, but men similar to the one shown in the diagram of saturankam are used when a proper board (generally of cloth) is employed. Often, however, the game is played upon a board marked for the occasion on the ground, and then the players make use of sticks of distinctive colour or length which they set upright in the square occupied. Saturankam and Ashta kashte are similar games on boards of 81 and 49 squares respectively. A similar game is probably depicted in the gambling scene Chitupada Sila on the coping of the Stupa of Bharhut, a Buddhist monument illustrative of Buddhist legend and history which is now considered to belong to the 4th c. A.D. Here we have four men squatting in pairs on opposite sides of a board of 6 × 6 squares. Beside the board lie 7 square pieces, 6 in a group and one nearer the board and in front of one of the players. They appear to be rudely engraved with dissimilar patterns, and have been variously identified as dice (or similar implements) or coins. The board is scratched on the ground and shows no cross-cut squares, but a short stick has been set up on one of the squares which—from the analogy of Sīga—probably represents a man in course of play.