THE ANCIENT HINDU CHATURANGA

The Chaturanga signifies the game of four angas, or four species of
forces, which, according to the Amira Kosha of Amara Sinha and
other authorities means elephants, horses, chariots and foot
soldiers, which, in the native tongue is Hasty, aswa, ratha,
padatum. It was first brought to notice by the learned Dr. Thomas
Hyde of Oxford, in his work De Ludus Orientalibus, 1694.
About 90 years later the classical Sir William Jones, also of
Oxford, who became Judge of the Supreme Court in India from
1783 to 1794 gave translations of the accounts of the Chaturanga.
This was at a time when knowledge of Sanskrit had been only
just disclosed to European scholars, the code of Gentoo laws, &c.,
London 1781, being the first work mentioned, though by the year
1830 according to reviews, 760 books had appeared translated
from that language, no mention of the Chaturanga is found in
Europe before the time of Dr. Hyde, and all the traditionists
down to the days of Sir William Jones would seem to have been
unacquainted with it. In respect to Asia, so far as can be judged
or gathered, the details and essence of the Sanskrit translations
mentioned in the biography of the famous and magnificent Al
Mamun of Bagdad 813 to 833 or those for the enlightened Akbar
1556 to 1605 are unknown to European scholars; there are no
references to any translation of them, or to the nature of those
alluded to in the Fihrist of Abu L. Faraj.

Eminent contributors to the Archaeologia, F. Douce, 1793, and
Sir F. Madden, 1828, adopt the conclusions of Dr. Hyde and Sir
William Jones and they receive confirmation from native works of