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Chess has been with us for centuries, through countless cultures and historic moments. A look at the game’s development throughout history opens a fascinating window on cultural evolution, transporting our minds to distant lands and eras. In Sanskrit, “chaturanga” literally means “having four limbs (or parts)” and in epic poetry often means “army” (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers). The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The game chaturanga was a battle-simulation game which rendered Indian military strategy of the time. Some people formerly played chess using a die to decide which piece to move. There was an unproven theory that chess started as this dice-chess and that the gambling and dice aspects of the game were removed because of Hindu religious objections. The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1500 years, although the earliest origins are uncertain. The earliest predecessor of the game probably originated in India, before the 6th century AD. From India, the game spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Southern Europe. In Europe, chess evolved into roughly its current form in the 15th century.

Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan ‘Alī al-Mas’ūdī, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military strategy, mathematics, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy. Mas’ūdī notes that ivory in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon pieces, and asserts that the game was introduced to Persia from India, along with the book Kelileh va Demneh, during the reign of emperor Nushirwan.In some variants, a win was by checkmate, or by stalemate, or by “bare king” (taking all of an opponent’s pieces except the king). In some parts of India, the pieces in the places of the rook, knight and bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, and Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, and Camel, but keeping the same moves.

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“Romantic chess” was the predominant chess playing style from the late 15th century to the 1880s. Chess games of this period emphasised more on quick, tactical manoeuvres rather than long-term strategic planning. The Romantic era of play was followed by the Scientific, Hypermodern, and New Dynamism eras. In the second half of the 19th century, modern chess tournament play began, and the first World Chess Championship was held in 1886. The 20th century saw great leaps forward in chess theory and the establishment of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). In 1997, a computer first beat a chess world champion in the famous Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov match, ushering in an era of computer domination. Since then, computer analysis – which originated in the 1970s with the first programmed chess games on the market – has contributed to much of the development in chess theory and has become an important part of preparation in professional human chess. Later developments in the 21st century made the use of computer analysis far surpassing the ability of any human player accessible to the public. Online gaming, which first appeared in the mid-1990s, also became popular in the 21st century.

Viswanathan Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster and former world chess champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating of 2800, a feat he first achieved in 2006. Anand is a five-time world chess champion. 

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