Chaturanga

Chaturanga (; ""), or "catur" for short, is an ancient Indian strategy game that is commonly theorized to be the common ancestor of the board games chess, xiangqi, shogi, sittuyin, and makruk.
Chaturanga is first known from the Gupta Empire in India around the 6th century CE. In the 7th century, it was adopted as "chatrang (shatranj)" in Sassanid Persia, which in turn was the form of chess brought to late-medieval Europe.
According to Stewart Culin, chaturanga was first described in the Hindu text "Bhavishya Purana".
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).
Origin and etymology.
The Sanskrit word "chaturanga" means 'four-limbed', referring to ancient army divisions of infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. 
The origin of chaturanga has been a puzzle for centuries. It has its origins in the Gupta Empire, with the earliest clear reference dating from the sixth century of the common era, and from north India. The first substantial argument that chaturanga is much older than this is the fact that the chariot is the most powerful piece on the board, although chariots appear to have been obsolete in warfare for at least five or six centuries. The counter-argument is that they remained prominent in literature. Several more recent scholars have proposed a gradual evolution in the centuries B.C. in the northern or northwestern border areas of Indian culture, where it was in contact with Greek culture brought by the Macedonian-Greek army, and where some rulers issued coins with fused Greek-Indian imagery. Myron Samsin argues that chaturanga originated in the kingdom of Bactria, ca. 255–55 B.C., in a fusion of the many short-moving men of the Greek game petteia, or poleis, with men derived from the various moves of an Indian race game, perhaps Seega or Chaupur, on the ashtapada, the board of another race game. Gerhard Josten proposes that the fusion took place in the Kushan Empire ca. 50 B.C.–200 A.D. and draws not only on Indian games but on the Chinese game of Liubo and Chinese and Babylonian divination techniques.
History.
Sanskrit "" is a bahuvrihi compound word, meaning "having four limbs or parts" and in epic poetry often meaning "army". The name comes from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic "Mahabharata", referring to four divisions of an army, namely elephantry, chariotry, 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", which is also the name of a game. The board sometimes had special markings, the meaning of which are unknown today. These marks were not related to chaturanga, but were drawn on the board only by tradition. These special markings coincide with squares unreachable by any of the four Gajas that start on the board due to movement rules. Chess historian H. J. R. 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", dated between the 5th and 7th centuries AD: The time of the rains played its game with frogs for pieces ["nayadyutair"] 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 two colours, 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 of chess is derived directly from chaturanga: Modern chess itself is called "shatranj" in Arabic, and the bishop is called the elephant. The Tamerlane chess was also introduced in Iran later.
Rules.
The initial position is as shown. White moves first. The objective in chaturanga, the same as modern chess, is to checkmate the opponent's Raja (king).
Additional rules.
Al-Adli mentions two further differences: