of chess. The description of it is taken from the Sanskrit text,
and our first knowledge of it is obtained through the works of Dr.
Hyde, 1693, and Sir William Jones, 1784, Professor Duncan
Forbes in a History of Chess, dedicated to Sir Frederic Madden
and Howard Staunton, published in 1860, further elaborated the
researches of his predecessors and claims by the aid of his better
acquaintance with chess, and improved knowledge of the Sanskrit
to have proved the Chaturanga as the first form of chess beyond
a shadow of doubt. Accounts of it also appear in native works
published in Calcutta and Serampore in the first half of this
century, and it receives further confirmation in material points,
from eminent Sanskrit scholars, who refer to it rather incidentally
than as chess-players.

The accounts of the Hindu Chaturanga (which means game of
"four angas," four armies, or "four species of forces," in the
native language, Hasty-aswa-ratha-padatum, signifying
elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers) (According to the
Amara Kosha, and other native works as explained by Dr. Hyde and
Sir William Jones) give a description of the game sufficiently
clear to enable anyone to play it in the present day.

NOTE. We have tried it recently. So great of course is the element
of luck in the throw, that the percentage of skill though it might
tell in the long run is small, perhaps equal to that at Whist.

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With every allowance for more moderate estimates of antiquity by
some Sanskrit scholars, the Chaturanga comes before any