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One day, a man called H. J. R. Murray was keen on getting closer to the roots of the game of
chess.
He decided to share his discoveries with the world by writing a book, “A History of Chess”, in
1913.
In his book, Murray assumes that the history of chess started in the North of India, traveled to
Persia, and then spread throughout the Asian continent.
In the Eastern World, for example in India or Persia, chess became a part of the courtly
education of the nobility.
In those days words like “Shāh!” – Persian for the king – or “Shāh Māt!” – the king is helpless
– were used in the games.
These words are very similar to the terms we use today with “check” and “checkmate”. The
rules were already quite similar to the chess rules we know nowadays.
Murray describes the original mold of chess, called Shatranj. Then he presents the role of
medieval chess in Europe during the Middle Ages, how it traveled from the Middle East to
Russia and then to Western Europe.
Finally, in the third part of his book on chess history, the author arrives at the beginning of
modern chess in the 19th century as we know it today.
Chinese Roots
There are not only those who believe chess comes from India, but some people believe that
chess was invented in China.
The legend says that chess was invented around 200 B.C. by a commander, Hán Xin, who
invented the game to represent a particular battle.
Soon after the battle, an important battle in Chinese history, the game was forgotten and then
resurfaced in the 7th century A.D. with several new rules.
The game became popular under the name “XiangQi” which means the “elephant game”, losing
its reference to the ancient battle. The elephant game was very dissimilar to the chess game that
we know today.
They had other pieces, another board, and even other rules. According to this belief, chess went
from China to India and Persia afterward, where it slowly modified into the chess game we
know today with an 8×8 square chessboard and the chess pieces that we are familiar with.