The progenitor of which game is the game chaturanga. Chaturanga board game. About the knight's move

Unlike statistics, which, as we know, “knows everything,” history knows a lot, but not everything. The emergence of chess is a confirmation of what has been said.

In any case, who and when invented chess, in the language of the lecturer from “Carnival Night”, “science is unknown, science is not yet aware of the matter”...

Neither the epic, nor the literature of the first centuries of the new era, nor the legends about chess that became widespread in the Middle Ages are reliable sources of information.

But, however, it is worth citing the oldest known legend about the “game of the sages”... And the Indian Raja Sheram was not distinguished by the ability to govern, and therefore in a short time brought his state to ruin.

Then the Brahman sage Sessa, wanting to give the ruler a tactful hint, came up with a game in which the king - the most important piece - cannot achieve anything without the help of other pieces and pawns. The chess session made a strong impression on the Raja. The analogy was quite clear. Wanting to thank the sage for an object lesson in life wisdom, Sheram promised to reward Sessa with everything he wanted.

Sessa, deciding at the same time to teach the arrogant ruler modesty, asked for an insignificant, at first glance, reward: some wheat grains. More precisely, as much as will be on 64 squares of the chessboard, if, starting with one grain on the first square, you constantly double their number. Sheram agreed, glad that he got off so easily.

But it soon became clear that the sage’s wish could not be fulfilled. The total number of grains was... 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (18 quintillion 446 quadrillion 744 trillion 73 billion 709 million 551 thousand)!

Based on the fact that per 1 cubic. see, on average, 20 grains, the Raja would have to lay out... 922,337,203,685 cubic meters of wheat. To obtain such an amount of grain, the entire surface of the globe would have to be sown eight times and harvested the same number of times...

Since this legend, in fact, only talks about the surprises of mathematics and does not contain anything specific to chess, it cannot be ruled out that it was born in India long before the appearance of the game that interests us.

For a long time it was believed that chess has existed for several thousand years. They were believed to have first appeared in Egypt and Ancient Greece. Science gradually refuted these hypotheses, but they pushed the imagination of the English poet of the 18th century. William Jones.

He created the poem "Caissa", which tells how the god of war Mars was captivated by the beauty of the dryad Caissa, but was able to achieve her love only thanks to the invention of chess. From here came the symbolic image of Caissa - the goddess of chess, similar to the muses, patroness of the arts.

In India, the game was known as "chaturanga" or "chaturaja", in which four people participated and each had four types of "troops": elephants, horses, war chariots and infantry. The movement of the pieces depended on how many points the dice showed.

The game symbolized the battle involving these four branches of the army, led by the leader - the Raja. In the initial position they were located in the corners of the 64-cell board. The movement of the pieces was determined by throwing a die. Winning was achieved by destroying all the opponent's forces, including kings. The moves of rooks, chariots, knights, pawns and the king were made as in modern chess, and the bishop moved only across one square diagonally, jumping over the pieces.

Chaturanga was a game of the upper classes and required a lot of experience, a certain skill and calculation, although the result of the game in most cases depended on the layout of the dice, which determined the movement of the pieces.

Shatranj

At the next stage of historical development, the game for four turned into a duel between two opponents. A merger of forces of the same name took place, and on the board they began to be located in two camps - opposite each other on the last horizontal lines with the modern arrangement of pieces, and the second ruler was replaced by “farzin” - the king’s advisor, and the role of the first was so elevated that his death meant the loss of the game.

The new game became known as chatrang (shatrang) and arose at the beginning of the 6th century in the vast region of Central Asia, covering the modern territories of northwestern India, eastern Iran and southern Central Asia even before the Arab conquests. The goal of the chatrang was to checkmate the opponent's king; the choice of moves was determined by the participants themselves. The pieces began to be called as follows: check (king), farzin (queen), rokh (rook), saw (bishop), asp (knight), piyada (pawn).

It very quickly penetrated into the countries of the Arab East, where it began to be called “shatranj”. The arrangement of the pieces on the board has been preserved, but their appearance has changed. Since Islam prohibited the depiction of people and animals, chess pieces, which previously had the appearance of miniature sculptures, began to be given an abstract form. Made from baked clay, they were very cheap, and this contributed to the rapid spread of the game among the common people. From palaces, shatranj came to markets and huts of the poor, and with trade caravans it crossed the borders of many countries and gained great popularity in the Middle and Near East.

The game at that time was already quite complex, but its possibilities were still limited, since the queen was one of the weakest pieces and moved only one square diagonally; the bishop was slightly stronger than the queen and moved across one square, also diagonally, jumping over pieces; pawns did not have the first move on two squares; there was no castling. But the rest of the figures moved according to modern rules. Therefore, the initial stage of the game developed slowly and a lot of time was spent on the entire game. The destruction of all the opponent's forces (except the king) and stalemate were considered a win.

In the era of shatranj, a recording of the game appears - notation, game theory, composition, and even the division of players into classes. Top class players (ancient grandmasters) were called aliyah (great masters).

Chess

Now let's touch on the well-known name of this game - "chess". The fact is that the Persians called their ruler Shah, and the Arabs use the word “checkmate” to mean “died.” Thus, the Persian-Arabic “chess” means “the king is dead,” which precisely defines the ultimate goal of this game - the death of the opponent’s king.

In the 9th century, Shatranj entered Europe. At first, Spain and Italy borrowed this game from the Arabs, and later it became known in England, France, Germany, Scandinavian and other countries. It was directly brought to Byzantium, Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary from the East along trade routes no later than the 10th-11th centuries.

In European countries, they played according to the rules of shatranj for several centuries, but the interpretation of the game and especially the depiction of the figures underwent significant changes. In accordance with the medieval knightly cult of worship of the Beautiful Lady, the queen gave way to the queen. The fantastic bird "rukh" - the patroness of eastern warriors - appeared in the form of an armed horseman, the king's envoy, and later in the form of a tower-fortress ("tour", "rook"). The Arabic term “alfil” (elephant), little understood by Europeans, acquired a new meaning - “bishop” in England, and subsequently “officer” in many countries. Only the king, knight and pawn retained their original names.

Gradually, the traditions of shatranj on the Old Continent were lost, and at the end of the 15th century, new rules of the chess game were formed: a pawn on the first move advanced two squares, castling was completed in one move, the range of the bishop increased, the queen became the strongest piece, stalemate was considered a draw, and so on Further.

All these changes and innovations made chess a fast and dynamic game, and the release of printed chess literature, which recorded these new rules, contributed to its rapid spread in Europe.

Do you like to play chess?

Did you know that India is the birthplace of chess? They were once called "chaturanga", which means "four arms" in Sanskrit, which were once elephants, cavalry, chariots and foot soldiers.

The true age of this game is unknown. According to one legend, chess was invented around 1000 BC. Indian mathematician who also invented the mathematical operation of exponentiation. For his invention, he asked the Raja for an insignificant, at first glance, reward: as many wheat grains as would appear on the chessboard if one grain was placed on the first square, two grains on the second, four grains on the third, etc. The ruler was delighted, believing that we were talking about two or three bags, but when all the grains were counted, it turned out that all the grain in the world was not enough to pay the mathematician! (It is equal to 2 63 − 1 ≈1.845 × 10 19 grains, which is enough to fill a storage facility with a volume of 180 km³).

Other theories push back the creation of chess even further, to the 2nd - 3rd millennia BC, based on archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Iraq and India.

The first mention of this game in literature is found in a Persian poem of the 5th century, which says that chess was invented in India. Therefore, this date is recognized as the birthday of chess.

Indian chess pieces are usually made of rosewood and boxwood, less commonly of rosewood and padauk. They are distinguished by high quality workmanship, beautiful appearance, and the use of noble varieties of wood.

Noun, number of synonyms: 2 game (318) chess (7) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

- (Sanskrit) an ancient Indian game with pieces (in shape and names reminiscent of an army with its formation), the predecessor of modern chess. New dictionary of foreign words. by EdwART, 2009. chaturanga [Skt. ] – ancient Indian primary form... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (from Sanskrit chatur four and anga part) an ancient board game, one of the oldest predecessors of chess (See Chess). Originated in India around the 5th century. According to Indian and Arabic sources, Ch. was played by 4 opponents; a set of figures of each... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

chaturanga- chatur anga, and... Russian spelling dictionary

Chaturanga- other ind. game, the predecessor of chess, known from the 4th to 5th centuries. Ch. figures by shape and name. resemble an army with its formation and movement. Ch means literally four members, i.e. four types of troops: chariots, elephants, cavalry and infantry. Figures... ... Ancient world. encyclopedic Dictionary

chaturanga- (1 f) ... Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

chaturanga- and, f. An ancient Indian game, predecessor of the Shahs... Ukrainian Tlumach Dictionary

Initial arrangement of pieces on the board in Xiangqi. Number of ... Wikipedia

Chess chess clock, chess board, initial arrangement of chess pieces Number of players 2 Age range 5+ Setup time Typically 10 60 seconds Game duration 10 seconds 7 hours * Complexity of rules ... Wikipedia

Books

• Testing using Chaturanga, Alexander Shorin, This brochure describes in popular language a testing method called “Chaturanga”, which allows you to learn more about a person in a matter of minutes than in long hours of traditional testing.… Category: Esoterics Publisher: Electronic publishing house "Aelita", eBook(fb2, fb3, epub, mobi, pdf, html, pdb, lit, doc, rtf, txt)
• Chess, Creative team of the “I want to know everything” program, It is believed that the history of chess goes back at least one and a half thousand years. There are many known versions of the “birth” of chess – “Indian”, “Byzantine”, etc. According to the most common of... Category:

Due to the fact that from 2015 to 2017 I did not have the opportunity to develop the site, most of the materials on the sources of the origin of chess are not presented on this site. However, in 2017, the author published a popular science book about the Indian game, which comprehensively outlines the Buddhist concept of the origin of chess: Shilyaev A.P. "Early history of chess: before chaturanga" Kirov, 2017, 330 pp.

Chaturanga is an ancient game of India, a wonderful predecessor of chess games. Superficial knowledge about this game, unfortunately, is associated with the opinion that this game is primitive. Hence the misunderstanding of the connections between chess and the culture of the ancient civilizations of India. The emergence of Chaturanga and chess games would not have been possible without the presence of traditional games in India. The discovery of a new mechanism for the backgammon game explains the birth of a new type of logical games and dispels the mysteries of the “mystical origin” of chess.

In the word Chaturanga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग ; caturaṅga), the formation of troops was called in the ancient Indian epic "Mahabharata", which took shape around the 6th - 5th centuries. BC. and written down in Sanskrit in the first centuries of our chronology. The transfer of the name to the game suggests that the game was intended for kshatriyas and initially in India it was played by a narrow circle of people. The word Chaturanga consists of two parts: it is “chatur”, meaning “four”, and “anga”, meaning the branches of the army. The four main types of troops (chariots, cavalry, war elephants and infantry) of the ancient Indian army existed in unity, therefore the word Chaturanga is the name of the entire Indian army.

Conditions and prerequisites for the emergence and subsequent spread Chaturanga:

Please be understanding if in popular chess literature you come across a reference to some folklore sources claiming that “chess” was known on the island of Sri Lanka 5000 years ago. The fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it. William Jones (09/28/1746 - 04/27/1794) - orientalist, chess historian and poet (author of the poem "Caissa") - was a supporter of the Indian origin of chess. It was the English chess player W. Jones who became the first to connect, on the one hand, the Indian game of Chaturanga and, on the other hand, the legends about the origin of chess in India. In 1790 he published "On the Indian Game of Chess" (in the 2nd volume of Asian Studies, Calcutta). The Russian game historian D.I. Sargin supported W. Jones’s hypothesis that the quadruple game of chess, that is, chaturanga, should be considered the oldest. D.I. Sargin, in his book “The Antiquity of Games of Checkers and Chess” (1915), cited a description of the chess game in India made by Jones. Further in the text of the book: “The Sanskrit passage about this game was reported to Jones by the scientist Radakantha, according to whom the game was invented on the island of Ceylon and from there passed to India. The checker with which the player had to make a move was determined by throwing the dice. The game was also called chaturanga, or more commonly chaturraja, which in the latter case means four kings." Of course, chaturraja in English will be the game of kings ( royal game), not kings.

The closest person to understanding the origin of Chaturanga itself from a specific game of throwing dice was the English game researcher Robert Bell (Robert Bell, “Board and table games from many civilizations”), whose book has been translated into Russian and is therefore available. In the chapter on Chaturanga, he writes: “In ancient India, the national game Ashtapada was played on a board of 64 squares. This game was probably somewhat similar to the game taayam” (a game played on a 5x5 board). In the chapter devoted to the taayam itself, this topic is not developed in any way, but an interesting postscript is given: “I express my gratitude to Dr. M. Tillai for his description of this game. He also introduced me to a more complex version known as royal thaayam, which is played on boards twice the size, using not four tamarind grains, but eight. This variant is popular in Tamil schools, but he could not give any details." Reading this postscript, you understand that we are talking about a game on a square board (with a 7x7 or 9x9, or even 8x8 format), in which four players have a double set of dice (eight tamarind grains), and the title includes a "royal" term.If you don't translate the name of the game into English, then R. Bell was dealing with game of rajahs for four participants, that is, with chaturraja!? It is possible that the Indian chess game used the name of the game from which it originated. Perhaps that is why William Jones wrote down two names for one game: Chaturanga and Chaturraja (Chaturanga is like a doubles chess game, and Chaturraja is a doubles game of backgammon type).

Military science in Dr. India

It is known that the Chaturanga game is a military game, since the game set symbolizes the armies, and the game process symbolizes the military campaign of the allied forces. Before starting the story about this game, it is necessary to briefly clarify the features of the ancient Indian army by sources of recruitment, by the nature of weapons, and by the structure of units.

In other sections we have traced the historical chain leading to Chaturanga:
First, ancient games with throwing dice (shells, sticks, grains), then games on cellular boards (a game from the city of Ur (Iran), dating back to the 3rd millennium BC; Egyptian game senate)
- spiral games of backgammon type (game on a snake from Ancient Egypt) - Indian and Sri Lankan quadruple games - game Taayam(Sri Lanka) - (royal thaayam) - Chaturanga.

Board game traditions of Ancient India

Traditions of quadruple games Dr. India are described earlier. Let me just remind you that quadruple games were carried out based on the principle of pairs games, when two allies oppose two others. From a doubles game for four participants, Chaturanga naturally transformed into chess games for two people.

Only such a transformation explains duplicating figures, symbolizing the ancient Indian military branches. The duplication of pieces is accompanied by symmetrical formations on the board, while one of the rulers of the allied army is demoted in rank, but his place on the ashtapada corresponds to the placement of the “second raja” (later - the queen).

If the name of the first raja in other chess games corresponds to the name of the ruler (check, king, etc.), that is, the translation corresponds to the meaning, then the name of the “second raja” is interpreted as a subordinate. Farzin (Persian, Tajik, Uzbek), firzan or farzin (Arabic), montri (Bengali), sitki (Burmese - in Myanmar), meth (in Thai Makruk), mandarin (in Chinese Xiangqi). This unpaired piece in all chess games (except for international ones) has a reduced playing value and a limited move - only diagonally one square.

Changing the game mechanism of backgammon games

The complication of quadruple games on a square board occurred in Ancient India in different ways. One of them led to the emergence of the game “chupur” (extensive path). The other path was associated not so much with the complication and expansion of the board, but with a change in the rules for moving chips and a more complex use of the playing space (intensive path). First, chips appeared that differed in the directions of movement on the board from the pieces of other players (Taayam game). Subsequently, a game appeared in which the direction and length of the move of each piece were firmly established before the start of the game, so they acquired the quality of pieces. With the help of dice, the choice of piece began to be determined (with given stroke length) which should have been walked at the moment.

It would seem that there is not much difference, since the length of the stroke is still determined by the bones. But a change in emphasis in the rules of the backgammon game led to:

1. to complicate the game, at least in connection with a departure from the usual pattern; 2. to the appearance of game pieces (heterogeneity of functions leads to external differences); 3. to change the goals of the game (previously - to go to a certain point, knocking down opponents' chips along the way, now - to play to destroy the enemy forces).

Now the mechanism of the invention of Chaturanga becomes clear.

Imagine that you often play a game like Ashtapada. Your chips and your opponents' chips move along intersecting trajectories. During the game, chips can land on any square of the board. Watching the game of Ashtapada from the outside, it may seem that the pieces obey only the thrown dice, and not the abstract trajectory of the playing field. The move is determined by the dice (but not the dice, which has points from 1 to 6). An ancient technique of throwing dice was used to determine four point values ​​- from one to four.

These four meanings were compared with the four ancient branches of the military, such as: war chariots, elephants, cavalry, infantry.

When one point is rolled, one of the pawns (paida) or the military commander (senapati) moves, followed by check.

When two points are rolled, the ratha (chariot = rook) moves.

When three points are rolled, the Ashva (horse) moves.

When four points are rolled, the Hasti (or Fil=Elephant) moves.

About the knight's move:

Of course you know chess knight move. Try to mentally place a chess knight along the trajectory of the movement of the chip on the Ashtapada board and count those cells from which the chip, when a three-point throw occurs, moves along the trajectory, performing a jump in the form of the knight’s move that is familiar to us. There will be quite a lot of such cells. More precisely, it is enough for the Ashtapada player to associate the three-point shot with a characteristic movement. The inventor of Chaturanga did not invent this movement. He simply tied this trajectory to the figure (that is, the knight) with which the player must make a move when the number 3 appears on the dice.

The movements of a horse are usually described with the Cyrillic letter "G" or the Latin "L". The knight moves three squares - two in a straight line and one to the side, and hits in the same way. A chess knight literally gallops, that is, it jumps over its own and other people’s pieces during its move. This move looks somewhat artificial and unusual in comparison with the move of other pieces of the chess army, which move linearly - horizontally, vertically, diagonally. The originality of the movement of the knight from Chaturanga was preserved in Arabic shatranj, in Thai makruk, in Burmese sittuin, in Chinese chess, in Japanese shogi. Jumping over other pieces is a legacy of backgammon games. The situation with the knight's move is different in Chinese chess and in Japanese shogi. But the moves of these pieces are a modernization of the move for a specific game. For example, in Chinese chess, this is an adaptation of the knight's move along the lines on the board (and not the cells).

In Chinese Xiangqi, the knight (ma) moves along lines, but it even seems similar to the movements of the knight in international chess. The movement of the Chinese ma horse is described differently. This movement consists of two segments: first, to one field along the line, then to the adjacent field diagonally. If the square through which the knight (ma) passes for the first half of its move is occupied, then the knight cannot move in this direction, since the Chinese ma cannot jump over the pieces standing in its path! Therefore, the Chinese knight can be blocked! In Japanese shogi, a knight can jump over pieces and move forward like a knight in international chess, but it cannot move backwards or sideways. A reminder about the move of the Chinese knight is made for supporters of the Chinese origin of chess.

Political prerequisites for the emergence and spread Chaturanga

Here are references to the ancient Indian Chaturanga in Indian sources: In Subandhu’s poem “Vasabadata”, written at the end of the 6th century AD, the following lines are found: “The rainy season played a chess game, using yellow and green frogs as pieces, jumping on multi-colored fields of garden beds.” Bani’s poem “Hartaharita” glorified the peacefulness and humanity of the Buddhist ruler of Kanyakubja - Sri Harsha. According to the poet, during the reign of this enlightened sovereign, “no other strife occurred, except for the strife between the bees collecting honey, no other feet were cut off, except for poetic ones, put into action no other armies except the armies of the 64 squares of the chessboard.”

Barzuya, the personal physician of Khosrow I, learned to play Chaturanga in India and after secretly rewriting the book Panchatantra (Kalila and Dimna), went with her to her homeland and brought chess, and also brought Indian doctors with her (at that time Indian medicine was the best). The book was inaccessible to strangers. This espionage operation took place not because Barzuya was a strong intelligence officer, but because Maharaja Kanuja was interested in developing political ties with the Shah of Iran. After all, Borzuia was helped in familiarizing himself with the famous book by none other than the treasurer of the Indian Maharaja.

In the 6th century, the Gupta Empire collapses. With the death of Skandagupta (454-467), who ruled alone for twelve years, the decline of the empire began. The central power is gradually weakened, and under mediocre successors, local vassal princes create independent dynasties. The emperors of the Gupta dynasty receive only nominal power.

At the end of the 5th century. The Hephthalite Huns resumed their raids, which no longer encountered serious resistance. The disunited empire did not have an energetic ruler capable of driving out the invaders like Skandagupta. Beginning in 500 and for about a third of a century, western India was ruled by Hephthalite kings, two of whom, Toramana and his son Mihirakula, were by far powerful monarchs. The second is mentioned in the 7th century. Chinese traveler Xuan Jiang about the cruel persecutor of Buddhism.

So, in the northern reaches of the Ganges, a rather strong state was formed - the kingdom of Maukhari. Its capital Kanyakubja (modern Kanauj) remained a cultural center and one of the most populous and prosperous cities of northern India until the Muslim invasion. The rulers of the Maukhari dynasty needed political allies and the establishment of Buddhism in neighboring regions. The threat to Buddhism was assessed as a real threat. Indeed, already in the Gupta empire, Hinduism becomes the official religion. The Guptas and Maukharis became blood enemies. Seeking support from the east of Gouda (Bengal) was problematic. It is known that the ruler of Gauda in the 6th century, Shashanka, was an extreme opponent of Buddhism - he expelled Buddhists from monasteries and confiscated their property.

From northern India, there was previously an exchange of Buddhist monks with Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia. In the 6th century, due to the aggravation of the political and religious situation in India and with the declaration of state independence, the Maukhari dynasty began to actively develop external relations. Ishana-Varman (550-560-5) - the fourth ruler from this dynasty changed his title to a higher one (independent raja) - Maharajahiraja. The embassy from the city of Kanyakubja to the Iranian Shah Khosrow I became possible only when the Maukhari dynasty pursued an independent foreign policy.

Northern India in the 6th century had significant achievements in the exact sciences, literature and philosophy, and in medicine. In Niland (near present-day Allahabad) there was the largest Buddhist university, where thousands of students studied and were supported. The buildings in Nalanda reached six floors and, together with outbuildings, occupied a huge territory. Embassies from the city of Kanyakubja were not only state, but also Buddhist. From this point of view, the inclusion of the game Chaturanga (called Chatrang in Pahlavi texts) as part of the gifts to the Shah of Iran carried an ideological and propaganda meaning. The significance of the chess game in revealing the ideas of Mahayana Buddhism is hidden behind the external attributes of a war game. When describing the gifts of the Indian ruler, it is no coincidence that it was the game that attracted the most attention. In the Pahlavi manuscript Visarishn-i chatrang ud nihishn-i nev-ardashir Chaturanga is at the center of the plot of a short story. Did the legendary vizier Khosrow I solve and explain chess as the Indian embassy intended?! Chess historians do not talk about this... And this is a good intrigue for all modern chess players who, with a lack of historical information, can use various versions of the origin of chess.

Did the Indian embassy help establish bilateral relations between the Indian principality of Maukhari of Kanyakubja and the Iranian kingdom of Khosrow I? Yes. This is known from the Book of Chatrang. Khosrow I sent a return embassy to India, which was headed by Vazhurgmihr Bokhtak. The history of chess and backgammon is firmly tied by this story to the reign of Khosrow I. Of course, games of the backgammon type existed before this time. For example, the ancient Roman Scriptula (Game of 12 lines). But the rules of Persian backgammon were nevertheless formalized under Khosrow I.

There were several embassies from the city of Kanyakubja, but information about only a few has been preserved. Thus, during the Harsha empire, close ties were maintained with the Himalayan principality of Nepal, as well as the Tibetan empire of Srontsang-Gumbo. It was to Harsha's empire that the famous embassy from Srontsang-Gumbo in 632 arrived, heading to Magadha and Bengal.

In 641, an Indian embassy sent by Harsha arrived at the Tang court; in response, Chinese embassies were sent to his kingdom (in 643-648).
The second of these embassies resulted in a joint military expedition of Tibet and Nepal to India under the leadership of one of the Chinese ambassadors, Wang Xuan-tse. The pretext was an attack on this ambassador, carried out on the orders of the new ruler, Arjuna. Arjuna was captured and brought to the Tang capital. This event should be seen, apparently, as an attempt by the Tibetan feudal lords, together with the Chinese, to intervene in the internal struggle in the Indian states.
(http://bvf.ru/forum/showpost.php?p=8642244&postcount=827)

One of the oldest Sanskrit inscriptions in Thailand was found in Uthong. The inscription on the copper plate reads: “Sri Harshavarman, the grandson of King Sri Ishanavarman, who spread his glory to distant ancestors, has ascended to the lion throne by rightful right of succession. He donated a bier decorated with jewels, an umbrella and musical instruments to the fortunate Sri Ishaneshwar. And he presented Sri Ishaneshvara with treasures of poetic compositions, songs, dances, etc.” (http://www.thairelax.ru/center_32.html)
It is possible that chess arrived in Thailand as a gift from the Buddhist embassy.