Chaturaji

This article is about the four-player game. For the two-player ancient chess game, see chaturanga. For the Jain people, see Chaturtha.

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Chaturaji starting position. Individual armies are distinguished by colour.

Chaturaji (meaning "four kings", and also known as choupat, IAST Caupāṭ, IPA: [tʃɔːˈpaːʈ]) is a four player chess-like game. It was first described in detail c. 1030 by Al-Biruni in his India book.^[1] Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice. A diceless variant of the game was still played in India at the close of the 19th century.

History

The ancient Indian epic Mahabharata contains a reference to a game, which could be chaturaji:^[2]

Presenting myself as a Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue, by throws of black and red dice. I shall entertain the king with his courtiers and friends.

There is no certainty, however, whether the mentioned game is really a chess-like game like chaturaji, or a race game like Pachisi.

At the end of the 18th century Hiram Cox put forth a theory (later known as the Cox–Forbes theory), that chaturaji is a predecessor of chaturanga and hence the ancestor of modern chess. The theory was developed by Duncan Forbes in the late 19th century, and was endorsed in an even stronger version by Stewart Culin.^[3] This theory was rejected by H. J. R. Murray in 1913,^[4] however, and modern scholars have sided with Murray. According to Forbes, this game is properly called chaturanga, which is also the name of a two-player game. The term chaturaji refers to a position in the game comparable to checkmate in chess.^[5] Forbes believed that the North and South players (black and green) played as allies against the East and West players (red and yellow).^[6]

Rules

Piece moves

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Boat move. The boat at f6 can move to any of the four squares marked with a cross.

The game is played with pieces of four different colors as shown in the diagram. Each player has four pieces on the back rank with four pawns in front of them on the second rank. The four pieces are king, elephant, horse and boat (or ship in some sources). The king moves like the chess king, the elephant like the chess rook and the horse like the chess knight. The boat corresponds to the chess bishop but has a more restricted range, like the alfil in shatranj. The boat moves two squares diagonally in any direction as shown in the diagram, jumping over the intervening square. Note that this differs from most ancient chess-like games where it is the elephant which normally corresponds to the chess bishop. Play turns pass clockwise around the board.

The pawn also moves as in chess, but does not have the option of an initial double-step move. Each of the four players' pawns moves and captures in a different direction along the board, as one would expect from the initial player's setup. For example, the red pawns which start on the g-file above move left across the board, promoting on the a-file. Also, the pawn's promotion rules are different; one must promote to the piece that starts on the same file (or rank) of the promotion square (king included) and one can promote only after one's piece of that type has been captured.

Boat triumph

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Boat triumph rule. Black boat f6 can capture all other boats by moving to d4. All boats shown belong to different players.

When a boat moves in such a way that a 2×2 square filled with boats is formed, it captures all three boats of other players (see diagram). This rule is called boat triumph.

Dice throws

On each turn two dice are thrown. Usually oblong (four sided) stick dice were used. Players were allowed to throw the dice in the air and catch them, exercising some control over the outcome. Pieces to be moved are determined by dice numbers (note that the stick dice had no 1 or 6):

Die value	Piece
2	boat
3	knight
4	elephant
5	pawn or king

On each turn two moves may be made, one for each die. The same or two different pieces may be moved, and the player may skip one or both of his moves if desired.

Scoring

There is no check or checkmate. The king can be captured like any other piece. The goal of the game is to collect as many points as possible. Points are scored by capturing opponents' pieces, according to this scale:

Piece	Points
pawn	1
boat	2
knight	3
elephant	4
king	5

A score of 54 points is awarded to a player who manages to capture all three opponents' kings while his own king remains on the board. This value is a sum of points of all pieces in three armies.

References

↑ Murray (1913), p. 68
↑ Mahabharata, Book 4, Section 1
↑ Four-Handed Chaturanga by Jean-Louis Cazaux
↑ Murray (1913), p. 75
↑ Forbes (1860), p. 18
↑ Forbes (1860), pp. 21–22

Bibliography

Duncan Forbes (1860), The History of Chess, W. H. Allen & Company.
Murray, H. J. R. (1913). A History of Chess (Reissued ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-827403-3.

External links

Chaturanga for four players by Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages

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