"
What this game was is not explained; beyond the description of
the oblong die of four sides, used to determine which piece had
to move in the Chaturanga; we have no information how a game of
interest could be made with dice alone, as is not easy to understand.
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We have no means of ascertaining, says Forbes the exact era at
which the Chaturanga passed into the Shatranj, or in other words
at what period as the Muhammadans view it, the Hindus invented
the latter form of the game. The earlier writers of Arabia and
Persia do not agree on the point, some of them placing it as early
as the time of Alexander the Great and others as late as that of
Naushurawan. Even the poet Firdausi, the very best authority
among them though he devotes a very long and a very romantic
episode to the occasion of the invention of the Shatranj, is quite
silent as to the exact period; all that he lets us know on that
point is that it took place in the reign of a certain prince who
ruled over northern India and whose name was Gau, the son of
Jamhur.
Sir William Jones was Judge of a Supreme Court of Judicature
in Bengal, from 27 April, 1783 to 27 April, 1794, when he died
at Calcutta.
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