Hyde, Sir William Jones, Professor Duncan Forbes and native
works, that for the first source of chess or any game with pieces
of distinct and various moves, powers and values we must look to
India and nowhere else, notwithstanding some negative opposition
from those who do not attempt to say where it came from or to
contravert the testimony adduced by Dr. Hyde, Sir William Jones
and Professor Duncan Forbes, and despite the opinion of the
author of the Asiatic Society's M.S. and Mill in British India
that the Hindoos were far too stupid to have invented chess
or anything half so clever.
Not a particle of evidence has ever yet been adduced by any
other nation of so early a knowledge of a game resembling chess,
much less of its invention, and it is in the highest degree
improbable that any such evidence ever will be forthcoming.
NOTE. There are some who do not concur in this wholesale
reflection on Indian intelligence, among others, may be mentioned
Sir William Jones, Professor Wilson, a writer in Fraser's, and
Professor Duncan Forbes.
AS TO THE SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF CHESS
One of Sir William Jones' Brahman correspondents, Radha
Kant, informed him that it is stated in an old Hindoo law book,
that the wife of Ravan King of Lanka, the capital of Ceylon
invented chess to amuse him with an image of war, when his
metropolis was besieged by Rama in the second age of the world,
and this is the only tradition which takes precedence in date of
the Hindu Chaturanga.
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