this century, and incidentally from Sanskrit scholars who wrote
not as chess players.

Duncan Forbes, L.L.D., Professor of Oriental languages in
King's College, London, is the next great authority upon the
Chaturanga; in a work of 400 pages published in 1860 dedicated
to Sir Frederic Madden and Howard Staunton, Esq., he further
elaborated the investigations of Dr. Hyde and Sir William Jones
and claimed by a better acquaintance with chess and choice of
manuscripts and improved knowledge of the Sanskrit language to
have proved that the game of chess was invented in India and no
where else, in very remote times or, as he finally puts it at page
43: "But to conclude I think from all the evidence I have laid
before the reader, I may safely say, that the game of chess has
existed in India from the time of Pandu and his five sons down
to the reign of our gracious Sovereign Queen Victoria (who now
rules over these same Eastern realms), that is for a period of
five thousand years and that this very ancient game, in the
sacred language of the Brahmans, has, during that long space
of time retained its original and expressive name of Chaturanga."

The Chaturanga is ascribed to a period of about 3,000 years
before our era.

According to the Sanskrit Text of the Bavishya Purana from
which the account is taken, Prince Yudhisthira the eldest and
most renowned of the five sons of King Pandu, consulted Vyasa,
the wise man and nestor of the age as to the mysteries of a game
then said to be popular in the country, saying: