Chess
Chaturanga
A reconstruction of the earliest Indian game, built from shatranj with the disputed points exposed so you can see where the evidence runs out.
Historical reconstruction
What is different here
Nobody knows how chaturanga was played. No rule book survives from sixth-century India, and the Indian literary references describe the game only in passing. Everything below is inference.
What this site offers is shatranj with the arguable points turned into settings. The elephant’s move, the king’s one-off leap, and the treatment of stalemate are the three places where serious scholars disagree, and each has a stated default here and a stated alternative.
Play it as a reconstruction, in the same spirit as a reconstructed instrument. It is a reasonable guess at an old game, not the old game itself.
- This is a reconstruction, not an attested rule set. Treat every rule as a choice this site has made.
- Defaults follow shatranj: a one-square counsellor, a leaping elephant, one-step pawns promoting only to a counsellor.
- The elephant leaps two squares diagonally here, following Murray; two squares orthogonally is offered as the alternative.
- The raja may make one knight leap in the whole game, while not in check. That is Murray’s suggestion, and it is switched on here.
- Stalemate is a draw here, because the sources point three different ways. Baring the enemy king still wins.