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Chaturanga ((サンスクリット:चतुरङ्ग); '), catur, is an ancient Indian strategy game which is the common ancestor of the board games chess, shogi, makruk, xiangqi and janggi. Chaturanga developed in the Gupta Empire, India around the 6th century AD. In the 7th century, it was adopted as shatranj in Sassanid Persia, which in turn was the form of chess brought to late-medieval Europe. The exact rules of chaturanga are unknown. Chess historians suppose that the game had similar rules to those of its successor shatranj. In particular, there is uncertainty as to the moves of the ''Gaja'' (elephant), the precursor of the modern chess bishop. ==History== Sanskrit ' is a bahuvrihi compound, meaning "having four limbs or parts" and in epic poetry often means "army".〔Meri 2005: 148〕 The name comes from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic ''Mahabharata'', referring to four divisions of an army, namely elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry. An ancient battle formation, Akshauhini, is like the setup of chaturanga. Chaturanga was played on an 8×8 uncheckered board, called Ashtāpada. The board sometimes had special markings, the meaning of which is unknown today. These marks were not related to chaturanga, but were drawn on the board only by tradition. Chess historian Harold Murray conjectured that the Ashtāpada was also used for some old race-type dice game, perhaps similar to Chowka bhara, in which the marks had meaning. An early reference to an ancient Indian board game is sometimes attributed to Subandhu in his ''Vasavadatta'' (c. AD 450): The time of the rains played its game with frogs for pieces () yellow and green in colour, as if mottled by lac, leapt up on the black field squares.The colours are not those of the two camps, but mean that the frogs have a two-tone dress, yellow and green. Banabhatta's ''Harsha Charitha'' (c. AD 625) contains the earliest reference to the name chaturanga: Under this monarch, only the bees quarrelled to collect the dew; the only feet cut off were those of measurements, and only from Ashtâpada one could learn how to draw up a chaturanga, there was no cutting-off of the four limbs of condemned criminals... While there is little doubt that Ashtâpada is the gameboard of 8×8 squares, the double meaning of chaturanga, as the four-folded army, may be controversial. There is a probability that the ancestor of chess was mentioned there. The game was first introduced to the West in Thomas Hyde's ''De ludis orientalibus libri duo'', published in 1694. Subsequently, translations of Sanskrit accounts of the game were published by Sir William Jones. In Arabic, most of the terminology was carried out directly from chaturanga: modern chess itself is called "chitranj" in Arabic, and the bishop is called "elephant". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chaturanga」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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