Variously estimated from 3,000 to 1,000 B.C. 
Chaturanga. 
The Primeval Hindu Chess.

bp—­krnb np—­pppp rp------ kp------ ------pk ------pr pppp—­pn bnrk—­pb

[Diagram of a Chaturanga board with 4 armies.  Yellow is in upper left.  Black is in upper right.  Green is in lower left.  Red is in lower right.]

------

The Medieval and Modern Chess.  White rnbkqbnr pppppppp -------- -------- -------- -------- pppppppp rnbkqbnr Black

[Diagram of a standard chessboard, white pieces at the top, black pieces at the bottom.]

Derived from the Persian Chatrang, 537-540 A.D.

------

833-842.  Problem I. by the Caliph MU’TASIM BILLAH.  Black -k------ RnR----- bN-p—­r-p-nQpB—­ p—­N-b-r -------- -P—­P—–­ -qBK——­ White White to move, and give checkmate at the ninth move.

------

About 1380. 
Problem ii. by ’Ali Shatranj. 
 Black
—–­r—–­r
ppq—–­R-
b—­bkp-p
--------
—­pp——­
pp-B-Q—­
—­K—–­pp
--B-----
 White
White to play and mate in eight moves.

CHESS HISTORY AND REMINISCENCES

CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF CHESS

A not unfair criterion is afforded of the long prevailing and continued misconception as to the origin of chess, by the lack of knowledge regarding early records as to its history exhibited in the literature of last century, and the press and magazine articles of this even to the present year.  We refer not to lines of poets such as Pope, Dryden and others, with whom the ancient order of fiction is permissible, or to writers of previous periods, from Aben Ezra to Ruy Lopez, Chaucer and Lydgate, or Caxton and Barbiere, but to presumably studied and special articles, such as those given in Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences and in Encyclopaedias.  The great work of 1727 dedicated to the King—­ which claimed to embody a reasonable and fair account—­and even the best knowledge on all subjects referred to in it; contains an article on chess of some dimensions, which may well be taken as an example of the average ignorance of the knowledge of information existing at the time.  The Chinese, it says, claim to date back their acquaintance with chess to a very remote period; so with the best testimonies of that country, which acknowledge its receipt from India in the sixth century the writer seems to have been quite unacquainted.  Nothing occurs in the article as to the transit of chess from India into Persia, next to Arabia and Greece, and by the Saracens into Spain; neither does a line appear as to Egyptian probabilities, or the nature of the game inscribed on edifices in that country.  Though abounding in traditional names of Trojan heroes, and others equally mythical as regards chess, the more genuine ones of Chosroes of Persia, Harun, Mamun and Mutasem of Bagdad, Walid of Cordova, the Carlovingian