An epic work that took more than a decade to complete, A History of Chess , originally published in 1913, is a historic undertaking that shattered preconceptions about the game upon publication. Over a century later, Murray’s research and conclusions, in which he argues that chess originated in India, are still widely accepted by most chess historians. Undertaking such a pioneering task, the scope of which has never been attempted before or since, Murray taught himself to read Arabic in order to decipher historical manuscripts on the game and its beginnings. His study unravels the history of the game as it evolved from its Asiatic beginnings, through the role chess played in Europe during the Middle Ages, and up until the nineteenth century with the arrival of modern chess as we know it. A History of Chess includes transcribed diagrams of important games, as well as some of the more famous historical chess figurines, such as the Lewis chessmen. No single work on the game of chess has become close to touching Murray’s in breadth or significance. H.J.R. Murray was an English school inspector and prominent chess historian. His father was the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Murray only published one other book during his lifetime, A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. He lived in England. A History of Chess By H.J.R. Murray Skyhorse Publishing Copyright © 2012 Skyhorse Publishing All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-63220-293-2 Contents PART I. CHESS IN ASIA, CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY, CHAPTER II. CHESS IN INDIA. I, CHAPTER III. CHESS IN INDIA. II, CHAPTER IV. CHESS IN INDIA. III, CHAPTER V. CHESS IN THE MALAY LANDS, CHAPTER VI. CHESS IN FURTHER INDIA, CHAPTER VII. CHESS IN CHINA, COREA, AND JAPAN, CHAPTER VIII. CHESS IN PERSIA UNDER THE SASANIANS, CHAPTER IX. CHESS IN THE EASTERN EMPIRE, CHAPTER X. THE ARABIC AND PERSIAN LITERATURE OF CHESS, CHAPTER XI. CHESS UNDER ISLAM, CHAPTER XII. THE INVENTION OF CHESS IN MUSLIM LEGEND, CHAPTER XIII. THE GAME OF SHA?RANJ: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. I, CHAPTER XIV. THE GAME OF SHA?RANJ: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. II, CHAPTER XV. THE GAME OF SHA?RANJ: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. III, CHAPTER XVI. GAMES DERIVED FROM MUSLIM AND INDIAN CHESS, CHAPTER XVII. THE MODERN GAMES OF ISLAM, CHAPTER XVIII. CHESS IN CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ASIA, AND IN RUSSIA, PART II. CHESS IN EUROPE, CHAPTER I. CHESS IN WESTERN CHRISTENDOM: ITS ORIGIN AND BEGINNINGS, CHAPTER II. CHESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES, CHAPTER III. THE MEDIAEVAL GAME, CHAPTER IV. THE EARLY DIDACTIC LITERATURE, CHAPTER V. THE MORALITIES, CHAPTER VI. THE MEDIAEVAL PROBLEM. I, CHAPTER VII. THE MEDIAEVAL PROBLEM. II, CHAPTER VIII. THE MEDIAEVAL PROBLEM. III, CHAPTER IX. CHESS IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE, CHAPTER X. CHESSBOARDS AND CHESSMEN, CHAPTER XI. THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN CHESS, CHAPTER XII. FROM LOPEZ TO GRECO, CHAPTER XIII. FROM GRECO TO STAMMA, CHAPTER XIV. PHILIDOR AND THE MODENESE MASTERS, CHAPTER XV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, CHAPTER 1 PART I. CHESS IN ASIA CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY European chess of Indian ancestry. — Asiatic games of similar ancestry. — Classification of Board-games. — Indian Board-games. — The Ashapada. — Speculations on the nature of the original Indian chess. — Previous theories as to the ancestry of the game. HISTORICALLY chess must be classed as a game of war. Two players direct a conflict between two armies of equal strength upon a field of battle, circumscribed in extent, and offering no advantage of ground to either side. The players have no assistance other than that afforded by their own reasoning faculties, and the victory usually falls to the one whose strategical imagination is the greater, whose direction of his forces is the more skilful, whose ability to foresee positions is the more developed. To-day, chess as we know it is played by every Western people, and in every land to which Western civilization or colonization has extended. The game possesses a literature which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined. Its idioms and technicalities have passed into the ordinary language of everyday life. The principles and possibilities of the game have been studied for four centuries, and the serious student of chess starts now with the advantage of a rich inheritance of recorded wisdom and experience. Master-play reaches a high standard, and has rightly earned a reputation for difficulty. This reputation has often been extended to the game itself, and has deterred many from learning it. Moreover, Western civilization has evolved other games, and teems with other interests for leisure moments, so that chess to-day can only be regarded as the game of the minority of the Western world. In the Middle Ages chess was far more widely played, and the precedence among indoor games that is still accorded by courtesy to it is a survival from the period when chess was the most popular game of the leisured classes of Europ