Chaturanga, by Sumit Sanghai
Chaturanga is an ancient Indian game. It is the common ancestor of strategic board games such as Chess, Shogi, Janggi and Makruk. While Chess is a well known game, the others are games native to Japan, Korea and Thailand respectively.
Chaturanga traveled to Persia in the name of Chatrang. Later as the game spread its name changed to Shatranj while the rules remained almost the same. The Sanskrit name Chaturanga means quadripartite. It was used to describe the Indian army of Vedic times in which the platoon had four divisions. Chaturanga was played on an 8×8 uncheckered board, called Ashtāpada. It was originally played by four players and later evolved into two player games.
The rules of the four-player game are as follows:
The players form two teams sitting at opposite sides of the board. A team wins if both the kings of the opposite team are killed. There is no check or checkmate and a king can be killed like any other piece. When a king is killed all the player’s pieces are removed from the board and the player loses his turn permanently. A player can kill a teammate’s pieces. Each player has 4 pawns, 1 king, 1 knight, 1 rook (chariot) and 1 boat. A boat moves 2 steps diagonally in any direction and can jump over a piece. All other pieces move exactly similar to their modern counterparts. Pawns can advance and can be converted into a knight, rook or boat. The play moves in an anti-clockwise direction.
On the right you can see an intermediate Chaturanga board position. It is Player A’s turn. Come up with a set of moves which will lead to Team 1’s victory. Email the author for the solution.
Sumit Sanghai is a PhD student at the Computer Science Department at University of Washington. You can reach him at sumit.sanghai@gmail.com
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October 27th, 2008 03:16
thanks for the article. I learned something I never heard before. i.e., Chaturanga was played by 4 players.