people, unanimously agree that the game was imported from the west
of India, together with the charming fables of Vishnusarma, in the
Sixth century of our era. It seems to have been immemorially known
in Hindustan by the name of Chaturanga, that is the four "angas"
or members of an army, which are said in the Amarakosha to be
Hasty-aswa-ratha-padatum, or Elephants, Horses, Chariots and Foot
Soldiers, and in this sense the word is frequently used by epic
poets in their descriptions of real armies. By a natural corruption
of the pure Sanskrit word, it was changed by the old Persians into
Chatrang; but the Arabs, who soon after took possession of their
country, had neither the initial or final letter of that word in
their alphabet, and consequently altered it further into Shatranj,
which found its way presently into the modern Persian, and at
length into the dialects of India, where the true derivation of
the name is known only to the learned. Thus has a very significant
word in the sacred language of the Brahmans been transferred by
successive changes into axedres, scacchi, echecs, chess and by a
whimsical concurrence of circumstances given birth to the English
word check, and even a name to the Exchequer of Great Britain!

"The beautiful simplicity and extreme perfection of the game, as
it is commonly played in Europe and Asia, convince me that it was
invented by one effect of some great genius; not completed by
gradual improvements, but formed to use the phrase of the
Italian critics, by the first intention, yet of this simple game,
so exquisitely contrived and so certainly invented in India. I
cannot find any account in the classical writings of the Brahmans."

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