Accounts of it also appear in native works
published in Calcutta and Serampore in the first half of this
century, and it receives further confirmation in material points,
from eminent Sanskrit scholars, who refer to it rather incidentally
than as chess-players.
The accounts of the Hindu Chaturanga (which means game of
"four angas," four armies, or "four species of forces," in the
native language, Hasty-aswa-ratha-padatum, signifying
elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers) (According to the
Amara Kosha, and other native works as explained by Dr. Hyde and
Sir William Jones) give a description of the game sufficiently
clear to enable anyone to play it in the present day.
NOTE. We have tried it recently. So great of course is the element
of luck in the throw, that the percentage of skill though it might
tell in the long run is small, perhaps equal to that at Whist.
------
With every allowance for more moderate estimates of antiquity by
some Sanskrit scholars, the Chaturanga comes before any
of the games mentioned in other countries sometimes called chess,
but which seem to bear no affinity to it. The oldest of these
games is one of China, 2300 B.
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