Ancient Gnosis and Chess Evolution

By Dr. Ricardo Calvo

Introduction: Gnostic Board Games

The game of chess belongs to a general category of board games that is both widespread and prevalent in every civilization. Among the purposes of chess and similar games is the creation of an abstract frame of reference useful in subliminating instinctive impulses such as ghting, hunting, or running, while minimizing the risk of physical danger through the practice of a competitive activity. Of itself, the term board does not necessarily signify the use of solid, nondecomposable media in order that a game may be played. For instance, during ancient times, lines were drawn upon sand or dust as a means of conguring a temporary gaming surface. Moreover, in certain regions, the use of decomposable materials such as woven tissue or papyrus was customary when producing boards. As for the extreme antiquity of solid artifacts, most of our archaeological data comes from ancient Egypt, where specic ndings of game boards and pieces, pictorial representations with added complementary inscriptions and written references in texts are fairly common. Many graphic representations dating from the Fifth Dynasty (circa 2500-2300 B.C) onwards, occur mainly in temples or tombs. Typically, these depict a prole view of players seated at gaming boards while in the act of either manipuating the actual pieces or contemplating some ensuing strategy. Fundamentally, all board games create a virtual reality by designating an ideal separation from the normal world through the implementation of sacred elements. Rules, regulations, transitional spaces, lines, circles and squares, as well as other guidelines to imaginitive play, evoke the notion of consacratory rites. A board, a tennis court or the lines marked on the earth for childrens

games are not formally dierent from the temple or the magic circle (Johan Huizinga.Homo ludens. Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1972 p.34. First ed. 1936). In addition to popular recreational functions, the prototypical structure of game boards has also served as an instrument for early mathematical and geometrical calculations as well as for astrological and divinatory purposes. Whereas such exercises assume a very ancient pedigree, surprisingly they are not considered in the standard classication of board-games which, according to H.J.R. Murray and his followers, comprises only four basic groups: race games, hunt games, games of alignment and war games. Despite how Murray denes the subject, the evolution of board-games appears to have been otherwise more inclusive of divinatory functions. As one case in point, in 1926 the archaeologist, Sir Leonard Wooley, discovered tombs dating to the time of the First Dynasty in Ur (circa 2500 B.C.E.) in which there were found four individual game boards. Also included in this nd were a series of black and white pieces, numbering seven for each side. One board composed a rectangle of 3x8 squares purportedly relates to the Egyptian Game of 20 Squares. An exceedingly old example of divinatory board-games also appears during the Egyptian pre-dynastic period. Dating back some 4000 years B.C.E., excavations in El-Muhasna uncovered the grave of a magician medicine man containing a clay board of 3x6 squares and 11 conical pieces which suggest a probable divinitory function. The location of the nd was a graveyard situated in the Upper Nile, some twelve kilometers north of Abydos. This board and its pieces were exhibited in London in 1909 by the discoverers, E.R. Ayrton and V.L.S Loat, who were appointees of the Egyptian Exploration Fund. A catalogue was published in 1911, and the board, along with its pieces can be seen at the Muse du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, Belgium. (Murray Board games.pp. 12-13 ). Divinatory boards containing some very remote connections to elements of chess also appear in the Hellenistic period. A. T. Clay (Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan part IV) published a table extracted from Erech and the Seleucid period. Its contents describe divinatory conclusions obtained by examining the organs of sacriced animals. The text has been translated into French (R. Labat. Le caractre religieux de la royaute assyro-babylonienn, p. 325, n 5) as follows: oracle du general Akalsulu qui au milieu de ses troupes, en interrogeant le euve, se noya. In his research document (Babylonian chess? Iraq,vol VIII, 1946, 5, 66-73) C.J. Gadd proves that this translation is completely incorrect. Instead, the text refers to divinatory practices undertaken through the use of a gaming board. Structurally, the two halves of the board in question are shown to be divided by a river, as is similarly the case with Chinese chess of ancient times, or as is found in the model of the chess board described in the second legend of Firdawsi. This points to a possible early existence of board games closely related to chess in Seleucid Mesopotamia, an idea further reinforced by Gadds statements made in consideration of the fact that the shape in which the Rukh was carved, derived from a form of Sumerian war chariot similar to those vehicles shown engraved upon several monuments. 2

Divinatory board-games and geometrical or mathematical exercises upon a board are as closely connected as, say, astrology and the calendar. In a manner of speaking, such linkages may be referred to as Gnostic insofar as the knowledge encoded into their substance relates to practices and philosophies which exert an experiential component upon the user or participant. Since the dawn of Egyptian times, a kind of secret knowledge has dissemininated and become infused into many cultural-religious achievements. Among its chief proponents may be numbered the architects of pyramids as well as the Zoroastrian and Mazdeists in Persia and Syria, the Pythagorean schools in the Hellenistic world, the Jewish Kabbalits, Islamic mystics and a long chain of interrelated movements which appear in conspicous connection with several relevant areas of science. Within the bounds of their more specic undertakings, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, architecture and medicine gure prominently. To distinguish between prevailing and somewhat erroneous notions of a segregated religious movement and a quest for Gnosis, it must be clearly understood that the entire issue of Gnostic transmissions though cultural artifact proceeds beyond the matter of whether one believes in the concept of a secret knowledge or not. The fact is that a signicant number of similarly aligned though often physically disconnected groups of individuals applied a particular form of wisdom towards both practical and spiritual outcomes throughout the course of many centuries and that, as an identicable tradition, it is only recently that the veil of suppression depositied over the full scope and meaning of their respective activites is slowly being cast aside. Ostensibly, from Egypt to China, and perhaps well beyond, an erudite priesthood integrated substantial scientic knowledge within a transparent, interpenetrating framework of equally rigorous religious, philosophical and spiritual interpretation. Installing itself as a thouroughly reective and reexive point of practice, this Gnostic linkage forms a persistent feature in all ancient cultures and appears increasingly relevant to many questions related to the origins of chess.Therefore, it is not suprising that we should detect a similarly persistent religious ingredient embedded within games of ancient civilizations, insofar as more updated research and interpretation of their overall schematics now appears poised to bear considerable fruit in this regard. In keeping with the possibiltites suggested on behalf of Gnostic reinterpretations of board game structures, the medium of chess (as we know it) has been associated throughout its development with astronomical symbolism. Whereas this particular feature was more overt in related games now long obsolete, even the battle element of chess seems to have developed from a technique of divination undertaken in order to ascertain the objective balance of ever-contending Yin and Yang forces in the universe. According to Chinese literature this image-chess (hsiang chhi) was developed during the reign of the Emperor Wu of the Northern Chou Dynasty (561 B.C.E. - 578 B.C.E.) and accordingly, the date of the rst treatise on the subject has been precisely identied as 569 B.C.E. The preface of this document, authored by Wang Pao still exists. In this divinitory game, it appears as though the pieces on the board represented the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations. 3

Image-chess derived in turn from a number of divination techniques which involved the throwing of small models, symbolic of the celestial bodies, onto boards specically prepared for this form of activity. Thus, there was a dice element accompanying a move element, as well as many intermediate regulations governing the actual throwing and placement of markers, followed by the determination of combat moves. All these go back to China of the Han and pre-Han times, i.e. to the 4th or 3rd century B.C.E, with similar techniques subsequently appearing at later times in other cultures. Along a parallel line of development, numbered dice, wide-spread in ancient times, followed a similar evolutionary course, which, in 9th Century (C.E.) China, gave rise to dominoes and playing-cards. (Joseph Needham. Thoughts on the origin of chess Cambridge 1962) The mysterious and remote origins of chess remain surrounded by impenetrable darkness. As a famous sentence spoken by Professor Fiske avows: Before the seventh century of our era, the existence of chess in any land is not demonstrable by a single shred of contemporary or trustworthy documentary evidence. Down to that date is all impenetrable darkness (Prof D.W.Fiske.The Nation. New York, 7th June 1900. p. 436.) Various and divergent theories have connected the original discovery of the game to Persia, India, China or, though the testimony of early Arab manuscripts, to Egypt, Greece and even The Bible. No one knows exactly who invented chess, when, where, why and how. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the many books and publications written on the subject, the main questions still lack convincing answers. At present, the most reliable starting point for any retrograde analysis of the whole problem is Muslim culture, since we are assured that the game appeared in the Islamic world already documented and endowed with a body of technical texts. Baghdad and the second part of the 8th century are the place and the date where chess shines clearly for the rst time. Written references develop through Arabic literature dating from the 8th through to the 16th century C.E. The original texts, written rst on parchment and later on paper, were transcribed in subsequent copies, and many of them have survived unto the present day. Currently, about two dozen Arab chess manuscripts are preserved in libraries throughout the world. Taken together, they give a rather clear picture of Muslim chess and its cultural background. (see Notes ar the end of this chapter). So far, historical research regarding possible earlier origins of the game has focused upon facts such as documents, archaelogical ndings or etymological evidence, although no signicant progress has occurred since Murrays 1913 update. Recent scholarly attempts to illuminate the impenetrable darkness conjure up the Medieval image of a chain of blind men supporting each other, each with a hand in the next persons shoulder. A major obstacle is the degree of credibility ascribed to many of the ndings thus far published. A history of historians is, in itself, a particularly signicant chapter yet to be written. All taken into consideration, there are several valuable works available that treat upon the subject of chess and board games histories, although signicant gaps are to be found in all of them, as well as a number of suspect bridges crafted with apparently deliberate and manipulative intent. 4

Since Thomas Hyde, Sir William Jones, Hiram Cox, Durcan Forbes and H.J.R Murray, the theory of the origins of chess in India has assumed the form of an established dogma. From its inception, this theoretical assumption triggered the apprehensions of British scholars sensitive to the issue of historiographic colonialism. In 1801 Sir James Christie (An Inquiry into the Ancient Greek Game ) voiced his disagreement with the trend :...we are by this time so well pleased by our new friends, and so pre-possesed in their favour, that, in considering their history, and the state of arts and sciences amongst them, we are apt to set to high a date upon their antiquity, and by far too high upon their ingenuity and inventions. More direct accusations owed from the pen of Nathanael Bland in his On the Persian Game of Chess (JRAS, vol 13, 1852. P. 69): Before, then, (them?) we bow to this opinion of the Hindu origin of Chess, or allow the four-headed divinity of the Brahmans to appropiate the wisdom of all the quarters of the globe, and their many-handed monsters to clutch every invention of the East as their own, a few queries suggest themselves which claim an answer from those who consider their position too strong to be disputed. In spite of protest, the prestige of Forbes predisposed the issue in favour of India up until most recent times. Now, as before, capable critics emerge who shed additional light upon questionable practices and predilections: He used false evidence on which to base its own claim that the game is over 5000 years old. and it is hard to believe that he was unaware of the error (Ken Whild in The Oxford Companion to Chess). Other historians discovered progressively false statements, exagerated antiquity, or even distorted translations of Sanskrit texts. However, for van der Linde, it was too late to contest what he perceived as being historical lies and, in fact, he was too advanced in age to inaugurate any new battles. Murray on van der Linde: ...but because he (van der Linde) was a Dutchman, and expressed himself with all the vigour of which an angry Dutchman is capable, English chesswriters...have ignored his conclusions...and have clung to Forbes unfacts and have exalted Forbes theory into fact, almost as a patriotic duty (Murray Modern Discoveries in Chess History BCM 1900 pp 429-30. Quoted by Eales p. 17). In 1996 I questioned the Indian dogma pointing at following facts in The Chess Collector: Fact 1: Indian literature contains no early mention of chess, although Persian literature does. The rst unmistakable reference in Sanskrit writings is in the Harschascharita by the court poet Bana, written between 625 and 640 C.E. On the other hand, pre-Islamic documents have solidly connected chess to the last period of Sassanid rulers in Persia (VI-VII century). The Kamamak, an epic treatise that reects upon the founder of this dynasty, refers to the game of chatrang as being among the accomplishments of the legendary hero. It reveals positive proof that a game headed under this name was popular during the period attending the redaction of this text, which supposedly occurred towards the end of the 6th century or the beginning of the 7th. Closedly related, a shorter Pahlevi poem from the same approximate period entitled Chatrang-namak, also deals with the introduction of chess in Persia. Additionally, Firdawsi wrote 5

about this subject in the 11th century. His sources are beyond reproach and form a continuous chain of testimony reaching as far back as the middle of 6th. Century Persia. Fact 2 : India provides us with no evidence of any early chess pieces, although Persia does. The presence of carved chess men found within Persian territorial domains contrasts with the absence of such items in India. No chess men appear in India whose dates can be attributed to earlier times, and only in the 10th century do we nd indirect mention being made of them through the text of al-Masudi: The use of ivory (in India) is mainly directed to the carving of chess and nard pieces. Some experts believe that old Indian chess pieces may one day be discovered although, so far, this hope is based on mere speculation. More positively, the three oldest sets of chess pieces conrmed as such belong to Persian domains, not to India. The most important are the Afrasiab pieces. These were found in1977 in Afrasiab, near Samarkand, and have been dated by their Russian discoverers as products of the 7th or 8th century. Western experts accept a nominal origin of 761 C.E. due to the fact that a coin thus dated was discovered in the same layer of archaeological strata. These seven ivory men, questionable as all idols may be, are distinctly Persian, despite that the territory in which they were unearthed happened to be under Islamic rule since the year 712. The next group of chess pieces, (three chessmen) also originated from the Persian area. The so-called Fergana pieces include a Rukh in form of a geant bird. Its antiquity should not be too distant from the Afrasiab lot. Additionally, within the Persian city of Nishapur, another ivory set was discovered, although this particular nd is approximately dated to either the 9th or 10th century. These cannot be considered idols and are carved following the abstract pattern characteristic of arabic pieces. Fact 3 : The Arabs introduced chess to India after assimilating Shatrang from Persia. Games intruduced upon the 8x8 ashtapada board which included dice and permitted the play of two or more participants may have served as protochess, but these individual genres dier too radically in nature and philosophy from one another to construe the evolution of Chaturanga as being identical with that of Shatransh. Arab writers stated quite frequently that they took the game of shatransh from the Persians, who called it chatrang. This event occurred during the middle of a political-cultural revolution, which has been brought forward and analyzed through the study of historical texts. As is specically documented, following a erce civil war, the ruling Ummayad dynasty was expelled by a certain Abul Abbas, who initiated a new era, founding Bagdad around the year 750 and transporting his Islamic political center to Bagdad from Damascus. The Abbasid dinasty was ethnically and culturally of Persian origin and as a consequence, Persian inuences became clearly dominant in the cultural renaissance which took place inside the Arabic trunk. A considerable amount of arcane knowledge derived from classical Greece, Byzantine, early Egyptian and Middle East civilizations, as well as information originating from the country of Hind, was compiled and re-translated into Arabic, absorbed within a scientic body of materials and subsequently directed along an historical path which eventually deposited it in the West. Chess was only a 6

fragmentary part of a detailed body of knowledge, which also included mathematical, astronomical, philosophical and medical achievements. Fact 4 : The etymology stemming from India is unclear. The origins of several chess terms may have deeper roots in India, although, in fact, the Sanskrit word Chaturanga denotes army, and it remains unclear whether it refered to our chess, to a possible form of protochess with four players, or to some strategical exercise with pieces placed upon a board that dealt more specically with actual military purposes. In any case, to be on safer ground, we must remember the earliest solid evidence about the board game called chess belongs to Persia. Even to this day, the Pahlevi word Chatrang signies the mandrake plant, which has a characteristic root shaped in the form of a human gure. As such, there is a good case in favour of a dierent etymological interpretation, since, in a generalized sense, any game played with pieces representing a human gure may be compared with the shatrang plant. Another signicant clue resides in the nomenclature of the pieces, which consistently relate to dierent species of animals rather than to components of an army: In the Grande Acedrex of King Alfonso of Castile (1283) lions, crocodiles, giraes etc. play over a 12x12 square gaming surface and display peculiar jumping moves. The invention of this game is connected to the same remote period in India as normal chess, although the pieces themselves are very atypical in any context which attempts to refer them to India. (See the reference Hasb(War) in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, De Gruyter, Leyden-New York 1967). Indeed, elephants are not at all exclusive from Indian origin (Sir William Gowers, African Elephants and Ancient Authors, African Aairs, 47 (1948) p.173 . Also Frank W. Walbank, Die Hellenistische Welt, DTV 1983 p. 205-6), nor can they be counted as unique with regard to their usage in Indian military campaigns: The Persian army had also cavalry, foot-soldiers, charriots and elephants, as well as a eet of ships. Moreover, in Egypt, the Ptolemaic Kings regularly obtained elephants from Somalia. With regard to this practice, Strabo (16,4,5) mentions the foundation of several cities in Africa whose major occupation revolved around the hunting of elephants. Their hunters have even written dedications to Ptolemaios IV Philopator (221-204 BC). Also signicant, Polybios describes a battle fought with elephants between Ptolomaios IV and Antiochos III in 217 BC. Pyrrhus and Hannibal used them in the West. Modern research conrms details of a widespread diusion of the general species, whereas, on a lighter note, the Rukh of ancient legend is depicted as an enormous eagle-like bird capable of lifting an elephant in its talons. However, for a clearer delineation of the Rukh, Sir Richard F. Burtons notes provide us with a number of speculative possibilties: The older term, roc. is a Persian word with many possible meanings: e.g. a cheek (Lalla Rookh); a rook (hero) at chess; a rhinoceros; etc. The world renowned fable of the wundervogel is, as usual, founded upon fact. Man remembers and combines but does not create. Thus, the Egyptian bennu (Ti-bennu = phoenix) may have been a reminiscence of gigantic perodactyls and other winged monsters. [N.B. Burton was writing in the 1880s and it is 7

no longer believed that humans were alive when pterodactyls roamed the skies.] From the Nile, the legend spun by these Oriental putters out of ve fore one traversed the planet and gave birth to the Eorosh of the Zend, whence came the Persian Simurgh (= the thirty-fowl-like), the Bar Yuchre of the Rabbis, the Garuda of the Hindus; the Anka (longneck) of the Arabs; the Hathilinga bird of Buddhagoshas Parables, which posessed the strength of ve elephants; the Kerkes of the Turks; the Gryps of the Greeks; the Russian Norka; the sacred dragon of the Chinese; the Japanesse Pheng and Kirni; the wise and ancient Bird which sits upon the ash-tree yggdrasil, and the dragons, grins, basiliks, etc. of the Middle Ages. A second basis, and one not necessarily conned to the literary imagination (M. Polos Ruch had wing-feathers twelve paces long) might exist among species of massive birds which suered more recent extinction. Sinbad may allude to the Aepyornus of Madagascar, a gigantic ostrich whose egg contained a hefty 2.35 gallons fo embryonic material. In keeping with a more scientic studies, on the African coast facing Madagascar, the late Herr Hildebrand discovered traces of another huge bird. Bochart (Hierozoicon ii. 854) also makes note of the Avium Avis Ruch (***??? and taking the pulli was followed by lapidation on the part of the parent bird). The Rukh hawking at an elephant is a favorite Persian subject and a Persian illustration in Lane (ii. 90) shows the Rukh carrying o three elephants in its beak which detail physical proportions of a scale that would suggest the size of a hawk in relation to three eld mice. Similarly, though legend it is conceivable that the Twelve Knights of the Round Table represented the twelve Rukhs of Persian lore, although, we need not gowith Faber to the Cherubim, who were said to guard the Paradise-gate. For additional mythological references, rhe curious reader may nd it of interest to consult Dr. H. H. Wilsons Essays, edited by my learned correspondent, Dr. Rost, Librarian of the Indian House, vol. i. pp. 192-3. In vol. vi. pp. 16-17: ...the quill of a wing feather of a young Rukh, whilst yet in its egg and unhatched; and this quill was big enough to hold a goat-skins of water, for it is said that the length of the Rukh-chicks wing, when he cometh forth of the egg, is a thousand fathoms. Again, the older term, Roc, may also be written as Rukh or Rukhkh. Colonel Yule, the learned translator of Marco Polo, has shown that Rocs feathers were not uncommon curiosities in mediaeval ages and holds that they were most likely fronds of the palm Raphia vinifera, which has the largest leaf in the vegetable kingdom and which the Moslems of Zanzibar call Satans date-tree. I need hardly quote Frate Cipolla and the Angel Gabriels Feather (Decameron vi. 10.) (vol. v., p. 122). ...I may remind the reader that the Egyptian Rokh, or Rukh, by some written Rekhit, whose ideograph is a mostroud bird with one claw raised, also denotes pure wise Spirits, the Magi, etc. I know a man who derives from it our rook = beak and parson.(vol. xii. p. 186).These facts can easily be amplied, as was done in 1997 in Wiesbaden (see my paper Wo das Schachspiel nicht herkommt). (*N.B. Some introductory material seems to bbe missing here....) Surely, new approaches and new ideas are needed, as requested in a worldwide call from the Koenigstein Group . Since the candle of science is still 8

too weak, we can use the sudden ashes of lightning extrated though other ideas to illuminate this darkness. These illuminations exist, and even if they dont allow a consistent appraisal of all details, they may lead us toward a new approach. This paper intends only to comment on several palpable directions for possible innovative outcomes. Specically, the relationship of esoteric knowledge suggestive of the origins of chess remains in reletive darkness, although Gnostic sparks of ancient schools of thought, confusing as they are, appear here and there in Islamic chess writings, kabbalistic interpretations as well as internal evidence correspondingly inhibiting and inhabiting certain aspects of chess evolution. The latter can be seen as a process beginning with a pool of protochess board games, pre-existant in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Chess, like Pyramids or Cathedrals, seems to be a self-referential product with a semantic architecture of its own. Secret knowledge linked with exercises played out in board game media was maintained and preserved during Hellenistic times within Gnostic circles, and at the very least, the game crystalized in Persia during the approximate time of the middle of the 6th century with the following basic particularities, upon which we shall comment in the ensuing chapters: 1. Selection of the 8x8 board 2. Rejection of dice and chance elements 3. Polarization of the game between two players 4. Design of the game as a model of war 5. Linkage of victory with the Shah-mat idea 6. Inclusion of related exercises into the main game 7. Fragmentary links with other areas of ancient knowledge INTRODUCTORY BIBLIOGRAPHY With regard to board-games, a basic reference is H.J.R Murray A History of Board Games other than Chess. Oxford, Clarendon Press 1952. See, among others: R.C. Bell. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations Dover. N.Y. (1979), Edward Falkener.Games Ancient and Oriental and how to Play Them. New York 1892. Re-edition Dover Publications Inc. 1961. An exhaustive re-appraisal of the Arabic chess literature can be found in: Reinhard Wieber. Das Schachspiel in der arabischen Literatur von den Anfngen bis zur zweiten Hlfte des 16. Jahrhunderts.Verlag fr Orientkunde. WalldorfHessen 1972. Wieber makes one point patently clear: chess appears during a process of orientalization launched by the Caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty, who transported the centre of culture from Damascus to Bagdad around 750 A.D. The Spanish jesuit and orientalist P. Felix Pareja translated an Arab MS from the British 9

Museum Libro del Ajedrez, de sus problemas y sutilezas, de autor rabe desconocido. Madrid 1935. II Tomos. (Referred as Pareja LDA). Its glossary of Arabic termini tecnici is very complete, as well as its study on the Koran and chess. Also from Pareja are La fase araba del giuoco degli scacchi. Oriente Moderno 23:10. Roma 1953. Pags. 407-29, an overview on Muslim chess. and La Religiosidad Musulmana. BAC.Madrid 1975,( Pareja LRM). In this book, Pareja gives an explanation of Islamic religious aspects. General aspects of Islamic culture can be consulted in another Spanish arabist: Juan Vernet. La cultura hispano-arabe en Oriente y Occidente. Barcelona, 1978.(Vernet.). N. Bland.On the Persian Game of Chess. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, v. 13, 1852, pp. 1-70. N. Bland. Persian Chess. JRAS (London) 13, 1850. Further bibliographical references are as follows: J. Gildemeister. Scriptorum arabum de rebus Indicis loci et opuscula inedita. Fasciculus primus. Bonnae, 1838. pp. 140-43.; 27. Mac Donnell A. The origin and early history of Chess. JRAS. 30, 1898; 117-141. Pagliaro A. Sulla piu antica storia del giuoco degli scacchi. Rivista degli studi orientali. (Roma) 18, 1939/40, 328-340. Safa G. Les checs: leur origine et leur tactique. Al Machriq 19, 1921; 835 . . Somogyi J. The arabic chess manuscripts in the John Rylands Library. Bull. J.R.L 41 , 1959; 430-445. Sachau E. Algebraisches ber das Schach bei Biruni. ZDMG 29, 1875; 148156. C.J. Gadd. Babylonian Chess? Iraq 8. Oxford 1946. J. Somogyi. Chess and Backgammon in Ad-Damiris Hayat al-hawayan P. Hirschle In Memoriam Budapest 1949. As for the Kabbalistic connections, I have been using Gershom Scholem: Die jdische Mystik in ihren Hauptstrmungen. Suhrkamp, 1980. Referred to as Scholem JM.

2
2.1

Mystical Numerology in Egypt and Mesopotamia

Senet is the best known and most widely popularized board game from ancient Egypt. Based upon a 3x10 board of 30 squares, it consisted of a race game played with knucklebones that could be engaged between two players or, as some temple drawings suggest, by a single player. Connected with mystical numerology, variants of the game consitently demonstrate that square 15 symbolized the House of Rebirth and square 26 The Beautiful House, while case 27, a water hazard, was one to be avoided. The game itself symbolized the path of the dead through the underworld. I must enter the Hall of the Thirty and I become God

10

at the 31 says one papyros. An extensive analysis can be found in Wolfgang Deckers Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt 1992, Yale University.pp 124 . Underscoring their xation with numbers in general, patterns emerge which clearly indicate that the numbers 15 (5x3), 26 (13x2) and 31 contained symbolic content that must have been well known among the Egyptians themselves. As but one example among many, Senet echos the established Egyptian tradition of placing coded numerological statements within the semantic body of various sacred texts, art and artifact - an outstanding factor that is pervasively comemmorated in the architecture of the Pyramids. Through convergences of structural similarlity, evidence exists that the Egyptian system of three sacred numbers was assimilated into the Hebrew kabbala. The 15 was a subject of reverence because it represents the sum of the rst two letters IH (Jod=10, He=5) attributable to the sacred tetragrammation IHVH, which, of itself, equals 26. Additionally, 31 is the kabbalistic reverse of 13, known also as the Crown of Jahveh, whereas the Pythagoreans adopted most of the connections with the sacred ve. Most of the knowledge linked with board exercises seems to have been restricted to the initiated. Although Jewish participation within the conventions of chess is not clearly documented, given the general cultural frame fo reference, the Hebrew role as a bridge between several ancient civilizations deserves more thorough examination. Thomas Hyde, Moritz Steinschneider and recently, Victor Keats, have collected pertinent chess references among Jewish authors which give rise to some positive hopes in this area, despite that no clear picture has thus far emerged regarding the question of Hebrew involvement in the main points of chess evolution. Recent scholarship is closing in on establishing connections which demonstrate that Hebrew culture acquired their alphabet and numerological co-relations from Egypt. An impresive update by Nessod and Roger Sabbah Les secrets de l. Exode: Lorigine gyptienne des Hbreux. Godefroy. Paris 2000 seems a turning point in this question. Whereas a more detailed view of an enormous eld of study is relevant to the history of culture, religion and monotheism, cross-disciplinary relationships may also impact upon inquiry into the origins of protochess.

11

The concise appelation of the deity which the Old Testament refers to as Jehovah or Yahweh, derives from the Hebrew name of four letters, IHVH. The true pronunciation of it is known to very few. I myself am aware of some scores of dierent mystical pronunciations, although it is generally assumed that the exact and original pronunciation remains shrouded in absolute, unapproachable secrecy. He who can rightly pronounce it, causeth heaven and earth to tremble, for it is the name which rusheth through the universe. Therefore, when a devout Jew comes upon it in scriptural passages, he either does not attempt to pronounce it, inserting a short pause instead, or else substituting the name Adonai, ADNI, or Lord, wherever it appears in the text. The radical meaning of the word is to be, and it is thus, like AHIH, or Eheieh, that it gains signicance as a glyph or an armative pronouncment of existence. Capable of twelve transpositions, all of which convey the meaning of to be; it is the only word that will bear so many permutations without altering its essential meaning. Also known as the twelve banners of the mighty name, they are said by some to rule the twelve signs of the Zodiac. They are, as follow: IHVH, IHHV, IVHH, HVHI, HVIH, HHIV, VHHI, VIHH, VHIH, HIHV, HIVH, HHVI. The German orientalist Oskar Fischer considered the number 13 as being what he called the constant of Yahweh hidden in many biblical words related to divinity. The value of the sacred tetragrammation JHWH is Jod (10), He (5), Waw (6), He (5), which, through numerological evaluation, composes 26=2x13. (Oskar Fischer. Der Ursprung des Judentums im Lichte alttestamentarischer Zahlensymbolik. Leipzig 1917.p. 67-69. You may refer also to his book Orientalische und Griechische Zahlensymbolik. Leipzig 1918.). Thus, the number 26 represents a sacred gure indicative of the Holy Name. This should be borne in mind when considering the reasons for the Gnostic success of the 8x8 board and its magic constant of 260 as well as the bearing it has upon several board game exercises, including chess. Jahveh - or Yahweh - transmitted at the Sinai (SJNJ = Samek (60), Yod (10), Nun (50), Yod (10) =130 =10x13). Additionally, the Torah (TWRH = Tau (400), Waw (6), Resch (200), He (5) = 611 = 47x13). The numerical value of names has therefore been one of the most predilected subjects for Jewish gnostics. Fischer indicates that when Yahweh decides to intervene directly in the destiny of a man, this may result in a change of name in some cases. The specic example of Abraham is given in Genesis, 17,5 : You shall no longer be called Abram but your name shall be Abraham; for I will make you the father (Ab-Hamon) of a multitude of nations The gematra of the new name is as follows: Ab-Hamon (aB-HMWN):Aleph (1), Bet (2), He (5), Mem (40), Waw(6), Nun (50) =104 = 8x13 Later (Genesis 18, 17-19), when Abraham was already 99 years old (i.e. near the maximum life expectancy) he laughs at the anouncement that his wife Sara, also in her ninties, shall become pregnant. The son, Isaac (the one who shall laugh) is also destined to became father of nations. His gematria is: Isaac (JZCQ): Yod (10), Zade (90), Chet (8), Qoph (100) = 208 =16x13 Jacob changes his name after wrestling against the angel of (Genesis 32,29) He said: You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have 12

contended with God Elohim) and men, and have triumphed. Israel, means Gods ghter or, God ghts. The ending El (value 31) means God. Jisra, with a nal h, means ght and its value amounts to the sum of 515. Therefore, Israel absorbs the divine factor of 13. (Total sum 546 = 42x13) Jacob (JAQB): Yod (10), Ayin (70), Qoph (100), Bet( 2) = 182 =14x13 Israel (JShRHaL): Yod (10), Shin (300), Resc (200), He (5), Aleph (1), Lamed (30) = 546 = 42x13 In the case of Joseph: Joseph (JWSP): Yod (10), Waw (6), Samek (60), Pe (80) =156 =12x13 Fischer gives many other examples: Selah, which according to some scholars is the most mysterious word in the Bible, appearing rst at the end of Ps. 33 and then repeatedly, on 71 subsequent occasions, in other Psalms. There is no explanation for its meaning although the gematric value of Selah is 2x13x13. There are other patriarchs with a factor of 13: Enos (27x13), Henoch (6x13), Caleb((4x13), Hosea ben Nun (41x13) may be included among them. A nephew of Aaron, named Pinehas, (16x13) received the priesthood due to his devotion, Jair (17x13), Ibzan (11x13), Abdon ben Hillel (3x7x13) and Elon (7x13) also bear the same constant. The factor of 13 applies among the holy places as well: The country of Canaan (37x13), the mountains of Sina (130=10x13) and Gilead (2x12x13), Jebus (6x13), the city Salem (50x13) and Hebron (in defective writting 20x13) nd inclusion. In Genesis 35:27 Kiriath ha Arba ( 76x13) is the place were Jacob went to join his father. The terebinth of More (Genesis 12:6) sums 2x13x13, Kiriath-Yearim (80x13). Genesis, chapter 14, mentions: En Mispat (43x13), Hazezon Tamar (68x13), Jabes (2x12x13), Jerico (18x13). Bethel and Beth Awen in defective spelling, also contain the respective values of 34x13 and 36x13. The constant of Yaweh is furthermore apparent in Amos, 5,5. Divine atributes such as sovereignity (2x13) or supreme sanctity (Godesch Godaschim 66x13), tabernacles (ohel moed 12x13), the holy house (35x13), the oracle bag (64x13) and the four precious stones inside it also fall within the constant Of the stones, (I 5x13x13, II+III 109x13, IV 150x13. Altogether, these create the sum of 12x27x13. Majesty is sometimes expressed by allegoric concepts, which apply words like lion to evoke the appropriate imagery. (Schajal, 2x13x13 (or ?) Schobal 2x13x13) or cedar (Erez, 16x13). Words of particular importance such as Heaven (jamayim 390 = 30x13), Son (ben 52 = 4x13), Father (13), Oil (30x13), Bread, Salt (6x13), Strong (10x13), Cave (16x13), Angel (maleach 91 = 7x13), Ephod (Gods image 91 = 7x13), Temple (hejal 65 = 5x13), Law (Tor 47x13), Right (33x13). Agar (with H initial), the servant in Isaacs house and Ismaels mother sum 208 =16x13, which is the same gure as Haak, who dwelled and prayed at salvations fountain (Gen. 16:14, 24:62 or also 25:11). Memuchan (12x13) in Esther 116 . Professor Fischers overall theory is not easy to refute. It opens suggestive topics for further speculations due to the fact that the choice of the 8x8 board in chess and its magical sum of 260 (13x2x10), as well as particular numerical 13

sequences encompassing the movements of the pieces themselves may have been related to such Gnostic considerations. Oskar Fischers ideas had precedents in the Christian kabbala of the Renaissance. For instance, in Italy, I have found evidence of a certain Rafael Aquilino, about whom little is known. In 1571 he published a Trattato pio nel quale si contengono cinque articoli pertinenti alla fede christiana contra lhebraica ostinatione, estratti dalle sacrosante antiche Scritture. The book was reprinted ten years later with several additions. Aquilino used a big kabbalistic library and states All these mysterious things are however unclear, and most of Hebrew passages end with Vehamschil iabin (The wise man shall be the one who understands) In the 1581 edition of his Trattato dedicated in attering style to Pope Gregor XIII , Aquilino makes reference to 13 benedictions. In the Holy Language it is imposible to say Ahebah (love) without nding the numerical value of 13. The same happens with Agudda, the mysterious union of Gods love with the synagogue built by 13 tribes though a union similar to that of Jacobs alliance with the 12, or to Jesus aliation with the 12 apostles. And today, your Sanctity is named, not without mystery, Gregor XIII. Similarly, each of t he words AChD, Achad, Unity, One, and AHBH, Ahebah, love, equal 13; for A =1, Ch = 8, D = 4, total = 13; and A = 1, H = 5, B = 2, H = 5, total = 13. Other numerological coincidences, though weaker, are perhaps worth mentioning. For instance, the number of chess pieces is 32, whereas in the rst great treatise on Kabbala, the Sefer Yezira or The Book of Creation, a compelling reference to the 32 paths of wisdom (10 Sephirot plus 22 Hebrew letters) appears. 72 is also a number persistently linked to mystical references of many kinds. Pico della Mirandola, in his conclusion 56, states that a wise man can deduce the magic gure of 72 from sacred tetragrammation. He explains the method in his De arte kabbalistica: Yod = 10, Yod He = 15, Yod He Waw = 21, Yod He Waw He = 26. 10+15+21+26 = 72. (See F. Secret La kabbala cristiana del Renacimiento. Taurus. Madrid 1979, p.85) The reverse, or the mirrored expression of 13 is 31. Both numbers identify themseves when writing from right to left, as in the Semitic languages, or also in Indo-European writing, from left to right. The number 31 seems to be a linguistic representation of the originary root, (ed, note: original root?) as Professor Fischer put it. The word El, which means God in Semitic languages (hence the Arabic Allah), amount to the exact sum of 31. Therefore, all words ending with El bear the same divine factors. After the Babylonian exile, the redactors of the Bible seem to have recovered the mystical association linked with the number 31 and to have reversed it in its mirror 13 as well. Sesac is a name appearing in Jeremiah which bears a hidden reference, to Babel or Babylon. In Hebrew, Sesac is written as SSC, with the letters ShinShin-Caph. The clue is a kabbalistic code (one of many) classied as at-bash, where the alphabet letters are interchanged as follows: The rst one is replaced by the last one, the second for the penultimate, the third for the fore-fore last, etc..(?) Shin is the penultimate letter (of 22) and 14

Caph the 12th beginnig from the end. When we replace them with the second and the 12th from the beginning we obtain Beth-Beth-Lamed, or Babel. The reason for the secret code is to protect the identity of the writer, who forwards dangerous political warnings. In the case of Jeremiah, the prophecy refers to the conquest by the Babylonian King Nabuchodonosor of every kingdom in the area, including Judahs. But the moment will arrive when: ...and after them the king of Sesac shall drink,(Jeremiah 25:26) The clue is deciphered by Jeremiah himself a few chapters later: How has she been seized, made captive, the glory of the whole world, Sesac! What a horror has Babylon become among nations! (Jeremiah 51:41) The sum of the Sesac letters is 300+300+20 = 620 = 20x31. Therefore, the factor of 31 seems to bear a numerological symbolism which points toward Mesopotamia. Also in reference to the rivers, Fischer reinforces this interpretation with other examples: Sinear, the soil of Babylonia, also supplies the same Gematrical result: 620 = 20x31. The word hannanar means the ow and delineates the river Euphrates. Its value is 310 =10x31. An identical sum occurs with hajjarden, the Jordan river. Previous reference to Sesac appears in anterior passages referring to Egypt (Isaac Asimov. Gua de la Biblia. Plaza y Jans. 1988. I, pp 303-305, 375) In this case, Sesac is an Egyptian general (not a Pharaoh) who oered refuge to Jeroboam, a rebel revolting against Salomo. Sesac is the rst Egyptian king named by the Bible and is accredited with founding the XXII Dynasty and correspondingly, controlling the Nile delta. 2. 3 Magic squares A Magic Square is an arrangement of the numbers from 1 to n2 (n-squared) in an n x n matrix, with each number occurring exactly once, and such that the sum of the entries of any row, any column, or any main diagonal is the same. The simplest magic square is the 1x1 magic square, of which, the only entry possible is the number 1. The next simplest is the 3x3 magic square and those derived from it by symmetries of the square. This 3x3 square is denitely mathemagical insofar as it satises the denition given above. As stated by Thomas Hyde, the origin of Magic Squares points toward Egypt: Sciendum est, quod Orientales multum delectentur Combinatione numerorum in Tabellae quadratae Areolis inter se convenientium ad quamcunque plagam numeraveris: et ille qui ejusmodi Combinationes eleganter componere novit, multum aestimatur, et pro ingenioso habetur. Tale Schema vocatur Wephk, et Ars illud componendi seu conciendi vocatur Scientia Concordantie seu Convenientiae, et inter doctrinas seu Eruditiones Aegyptiorum haec non est minima: nam in talibus Schematis Voces Litteraeque exprimuntur Numeris magna mysteria continentibus; quae, eisdem Numeris rursus in Voces resolutis, evertendo eliciuntur. Et hoc quidem modo res sua natura planae, operte et mysteriose exprimuntur; et obscuritate involvuntur; quod laudabile et pro elegantia nunc (ut et olim) in Aegypto habitum. There follow the astrological correlations of Magic Squares Hujusmodi Tabellae a se invicem diversae ab Astrologis conduntur pro singulis Planetis: viz. 15

Convenientia 3 in 3 pro Saturno, 4 in 4 pro Jove, 5 in 5 pro Marte, 6 in 6 pro Sole, 7 in 7 pro Venere, 8 in 8 pro Mercurio, 9 in 9 pro Luna. Since ancient times, Magic Squares have been related to the dierent planets or luminaries of the Ptolemaic system. The board of 8x8 was adscribed to Mercury. 3x3 is Saturn, 4x4 Jupiter, 5x5 Mars, 6x6 the Sun, 7x7 Venus and 9x9 the Moon. The most conservative estimate shows that they were employed as talismans during hellenistic times. As early as the rst Century C.E., The NeoPythogorean, Apolonius of Tiana, concentrated upon the esoteric derivations of the Saturn board. Arabic literature also bears scattered reference to numerology, and later, the same will be done by kabbalists and Jewish alchemists. Such relationships appear again in other works of the so-called Christian Kabbala of the Renaissance and were assimilated into the esoterical work of Agrippa von Nettesheim: De occulta Philosophia (1533). Moreover, the mathematician and occultist Girolamo Cardano deals with the subject in his Practica arithmetica generalis (1539), With regard to the relationship of Magic Squares on the 8x8 board, see a full review of the publications on the subject in Pavle Bidev: Geschichte der Entdeckung des Schachs im magischen Quadrat und des magischen Quadrat im Schach . Schachwissentschaftliche Forschungen nr 5. January 1975. I shall comment upon it later on, because it involves clues regarding the invention of chess movements or, as Bidev put it, the genetic code of chess, 2. 4 Gnostic boards There are several other boards engraved in the Egyptian temple of Kurna, besides the chess board (see Figure ). Board A from Kurna (three man morris) appears as late as 1283 in the Libro del Acedrex, de los dados e de las tablas of king Alfonso X el Sabio under the name of Alquerque de tres which also inserts a comment upon the game having been derived from saberes antigos (ancient knowledge) : et assi fueron descendiendo fasta en una casa:que partieron en ocho partes. E todo esto zieron por grandes semeianzas segunt los saberes antigos que usuan los sabios. Etymology explains that alquerque was an Arabic term having the root qirq, qirqa, which comes from the Latin circus (eld or playing area). In the Kittab al agani (ca. 967) we nd references to an inhabitant of Mecca who kept boards for chess, nard and qirq (Murray, BG p.37) at his disposal. The Arabs draw such boards on sand or dust when stating something with solemnity (Doughty.Arabia deserta 1988. i, 267. Cit. by Murray. p.614) The actual name for such games, according to the orientalist Dozy is Dris or Idris, which is also the Arabic name of the Biblical patriarch Enoch, the patron of occult sciences in Semitic mystical tradition. Murray, p.613, doesnt identify Dris with Idris, but the internal evidence seems convincing enough. Enoch appears in the list of patriarchs who lived an extraordinarily long amount of years. The number for Enoch is 365, as recorded in Genesis V, 23-24: The whole lifetime of Enoch was three hundred and sixty ve years. Enoch walked with God, and he was seen no more because God took him. The exact gure of the year cycle points toward the incrustation of an Egyptian (or Babylonian) myth. (Isaac Asimov. Gua de la Biblia. Plaza y Jans, 1988. I, p.34. The so-called Books of Enoch are one of the earliest sources 16

dealing with the subject of Jewish gnosis ( Gershom Sholem.Die jdische Mystik in ihrer Hauptstmungen. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1980). Some of its elements appear connected with protochess. Rumour of the gnostic Books of Enoch appear in the New Testament, and can be referenced in the Epistle of Jude 1,14: Now of these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied... Board E is the alquerque de seis, popular during medieval times and it appears, at least untill the 17th century, depicted or engraved in the under face side of usuak chess boards (Carrera P. Il Giuoco degli Scacchi 1617). Board D is the famous Pentalfa (Five alfas - which can be seen in its gure). This star can be traced continuously with a pencil without leaving the paper. It appears expressed with the Sumerian sign UB in pre-cuneiform inscriptions in Mesopotamia, some 3000 years B.C.E. A symbol of the goddess Ishtar (or Isis in Egypt), it was also used by Pythagorean schools throughout the Hellenistic period. In the 3rd century BC it appears on a coin with 5 letters reading PITAN. A game using this board is still being played in Crete, Malta and other Mediterranean points. On the other hand, it embodies not only mystical or religious inferences, but also many interwoven mathematical properties commonly attributed to sacred geometry. HINTS IN THE EGYPTIAN AND HELLENISTIC GNOSIS Figure 1 shows several boards engraved in the Egyptian temple of Kurna, among them a chess board consisting of an 8x8 square conguration. This temple, situated upon the western shore of the Nile, was built by Ramses I (1400-1366 BC) and nished by Seti I (1366-1333 BC). (Murray Board games pp. 18-19). The presence of a chess board among the others is interesting enough, because many additonal chess-like scenes are profusely depicted in ancient Egyptian iconography. The union of mathematical genius and mysticism is common enough, and the history of mathematics is full of examples. The most venerable is perhaps Pythagoras of Samos (. 530 BCE), who must have been one of the worlds greatest men, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine known as Pythagorean (and sometimes Neo-Platonism or Gnosticism) is due to the founder of the society and how much is of a later development. It seems plausible however that most of it was borrowed from very ancient sources, and in fact, Pythagoras travelled for years through the Middle East and Egypt. In the last period of his life, he founded at Kroton (in southern Italy), a society which was at once a religious community and a scientic school. Such a body was bound to excite jealousy and mistrust, and we hear of many struggles. Pythagoras himself had to ee from Kroton to Metapontion, where he died. Hardly any school ever professed such reverence for its founders authority as the Pythagoreans. On the other hand, few schools have shown so much capacity for progress and for adapting themselves to new conditions. A central point of the doctrine is the famous watchword: Everything is ruled by the Number or, Number is the essence of all things. The Pentalfa was seen by the Pythagoreans as an emblem of cosmic beauty and harmony in nature, as in the ve petals of the owers. Even many centuries later, the Pentagram represented the microcosmos which we nd depicted among the famous engravings by Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim in Lib. IV of his De Occulta Philosophia. Its eso17

terical meaning was kept with great secrecy among Pythagorean circles (It is said that a certain Hipasos of Metapontion was expelled from the brotherhood because he had revealed part of it). The ve Platonic Solids or regular (poliedres) (polarities?) are a tridimensional amplication of the Pentagram. The Five Platonic solids (Tetrahedron, Cube or (Hexahedron), Octahedron, Dodecahedron and Icosahedron) are ideal, primal models of crystal patterns that occur throughout the world of minerals in countless variations. These are the only ve regular polyhedra, that is, the only ve solids made from the same equilateral, equiangular polygons. To the Greeks, these solids symbolized re, earth, air, spirit (or ether) and water respectively. The cube and octahedron are duals, meaning that one can be created by connecting the midpoints of the faces of the other. The icosahedron and dodecahedron are also duals of each other, and three mutually perpendicular, mutually bisecting golden rectangles can be drawn connecting their vertices and midpoints, respectively. The tetrahedron is a dual unto itself. Pythagoreans went so far as to adopt it as a sign of mutual recognition (Iamblicus, Vita Pyth. XXIII). Its Greek name was Hugeia, with the meaning of health (The same root as in the word Hygiene. The goddess Higeia , daughter of Asklepios or Esculapius, was named Salus among the Romans, a blessing and protective divinity) Hugeia is also a very frequent inscription in the talismans of the Classical period. Pythagoreans used as a greeting the word Hugiaine!, in the sense of health, blessing, plenitude (Aristofanes The Clouds 609, Lucian Pro lapsu 5). On the contrary, the reversed Pentalfa was named The Druids Foot in Medieval folklore, and seen as a devilish symbol by occultist circles. (A fallen star, like Satan, who in the Book of Revelation is described as a two-horned beast emerging from the Earth). The 3/4/5, 5/12/13 and 7/24/25 triangles are examples of right triangles whose sides are whole numbers. The 3/4/5 triangle is contained within the socalled Kings Chamber of the Great Pyramid, along with the 2/3/root5 and 5/root5/2root5 triangles, utilizing the various diagonals and sides. There are 13 Archimedean solids, each of which are composed of two or more dierent regular polygons. Interestingly, 5 (Platonic) and 13 (Archimedean) are both Fibonacci numbers, and 5, 12 and 13 form a perfect right angle triangle. The axis of mystical numerology in Pythagorean thinking was the sacred ve. Its derivations are described for instance in Matila Ghyka. (El nmero de Oro. Ed.Poseidon. Barcelona 1978.) or in Ernest Bindel (Die geistigen Grundlagen der Zahl. pp.39-102.) The Five was considered as an abstract archetype of generation. Pythagoreans named it the generator (gamos), because it was formed by the rst even number (female) and the rst odd male number (2+3), being its Goddess Aphrodite (Venus). The rst decade of numbers circles around the ve. So, medieval kabbalists named the ve a circular number, because it turns around itself, and its products nish either in 0 or in 5 Ben Esra indicates that the 5 is the end of the rst class of numbers in the decade. Centuries later, the ideas of circular ve were retaken by the so-called Christian Kabbala of the Renaissance. Pico della Mirandola commented in his conclusion 18

63 of the second part of his treatise the spheric nature of the ve. Lets draw a circle. Put 5 diameters numbered from 1 to 9, 2 to 8, 3 to 7, 4 to 6 and 5 to 5.(...) If we subtract from the biggest number the quantity with which it surpases 5 and we add it to the lesser number, we will always obtain 5. So it is a spheric number. Round boards in Kurna may have been related to similar exercises. Such Gnostic properties of the number ve diused by various means and were incorporated into other religions. Hebrew kabbala related it with the letter He and with the idea of Health. In Tarot, 5 is The Great Priest, which signies salvation, help and health. In Islam, the 5 is a pivotal element in allegoric numerology, inclusive of the ve pillars, ve daily prayers, as well as the ve ethical categories and their fuinction in Islamic law. In their Gnostc encyclopedia (see later), a mystical group named the Brothers of Purity established some occultist correlations of the ve. During its earliest developmental stages, Christianity poured new wine in old recipients, whereas, 5 appears in old Christian anagrams depicting the name of Jesus, amid its allegory of sh (Ictis in Greek) or in the famous magic square of SATOR . (P. Jrme Carcopino Le Christianisme secret du Carr Magique tudes dHistoire Chrtienne. n. 54/3080. Ed. Albin Michel. Paris 1953. P. de Jerphanion La formule magique SATOR. AREPO, vieilles thories et faits nouveaux. Recherches de Science Religieuse. 25, (1935) pp 188-225)

2.2

The Invention Of Chess Movements

2. 1 The Safadi Board Here is the starting point of my research. It shows an important intellectual achievement which may explain several obscure aspects of the origins of chess. This numerological arrangement on the chess board appears in the Arabic manuscript MS Berlin 7663-1, written by a certain Al Safadi, and according to Wieber is the only magic square in the form of a chess board present in Arab manuscripts. (Wieber.op.cit.p.119. The Manuscript Berlin 7663, 1: 40a-48 shows the Safadi board, without further explanation, on fol 43b.) Its origin must certainly be much older than chess, as we will see, although Safadi, a disciple of the famous Ibn Khallikan, lived towards the end of the 14th century, (v.d Linde I, S 5 Bibl: John Wallis. Opera Mathematica. Oxonii 1699. Bd. I. S. 159-64 ) References to magic chess boards are older. Another clue appears in an Arab manuscript from 975 which puzzled Van der Linde. The anonymous author speaks about magic squares of 3x3, 8x8 and 9x9. The Arabic author writes about a numerological construction in which there are the house of the Knight the march of the Pawn, the moves of the Visir and refers to the usefulness of it as a talisman. A chess piece with a rectilinear movement it would obtain the same sum of 260 after eight moves in any column or in any line of the Safadi board, as we shall call it from this point onward. THE SAFADI BOARD A chess piece moving step by step along the two great diagonals which can be plotted on the surface of the board obtains the magic result of 260. So far 19

there is however nothing absolutely extraordinary, because many other magic squares can be constructed on any board of any size fullling the same property. In the chess board more than 200 million of such magic Squares are possible. In exact terms these number 207,852,480 dierent possibilities, according to the French mathematician Lucien Grardin. Les carrs magiques. Dangles. Paris 1986. p. 20 But marvels in this chess board appear when we start thinking in terms of the movement of the chess pieces. Step by step, the diagonal movement portrays the farzin, or what refers directly to the old arabic queen. In addition, the rectilinear, stepwise movement may be ascribed to the King. Consequently, an alternative diagonal jump in two adjacent lines or columns (which can be done by either of these two pieces) also provides the identical constant sum of 2. A further shock arises as we proceed with our examination of the movements of chess pieces. A pawn (and to some extent, also the king), could be kinetically characterized by a vertical movement followed by a diagonal step. It produces the same sum: 5-12-45-36-28-21-52-61 = 260. The initial placement is irrelevant: 57-50-23-32-40-47-10-1 = 260. The same happens if we repeat the procedure in horizontal sense, as would be proper for the King and not for the Pawn: 1755-11-45-44-14-50-24 = 260. It doesnt matter whether the rst movement is diagonal or not, providing the alternation is maintained. It is dicult to describe the serious complications which evolve as we attempt to calculate what the anonymous arabic author of 975 C.E. called The House of the Knight. The Knight also retains a great variety of routes from which it might obtain the constant sum. For instance: 64-11-17-38-33-22-16-59 = 260. Most often, after 4 jumps we gain half of the sum, 130, which can serve as a guide when testing out one of the many possible paths. Increasingly, through mathematecal investigation, it would appear as though the rules of chess are somehow miraculously present in this numerological arrangement. Even today, this ancient board makes a tremendous intellectual impact because all movements of the pieces are directly engraved upon it. Therefore, the logical conclusion is to connect it with the invention of chess, as several scholars have already done during the past century. (See a full review of the publications on the subject in Pavle Bidev. Geschichte der Entdeckung des Schachs im magischen Quadrat und des magischen Quadrat im Schach . Schachwissentschaftliche Forschungen nr 5. January 1975) It would be preposterous to think that chess movements were invented arbitrarly and that afterwards a magic square should appear containing all of them. As a consequence, the inventor or inventors of chess must have used this preexistent numerological arrangement (the genetic code of chess, as prof. Bidev put it) before deciding how to institute the various moves of the dierent chess pieces upon the board. THE HIDDEN CLUE IN FIRDAWSI To reinforce this conclusion, there is a decisive passage in Firdawsis legendary story about the invention of chess which seems to have been neglected so far in its obvious meaning. The relevant chapter of Firdawsis Book of Kings can be seen, for instance, in Antonius van der Linde Geschichte und Literatur des Schachspiels. Berlin 1874. (reedited 20

by Olms, Zrich 1981), II, p. 245 . About the sources from Firdawsi, I, p.4. V. der Linde uses the French translation of Jules Mohl, which diers in at least one very important point from the copy used by Murray, as we shall comment later. Abu al Quasim Mansur, also named Firdawsi (932/42-1020/25) is the most reliable source for pre-Islamic chess in Persia. (Antonius van der Linde. Geschichte und Literatur des Schachspiels. Berlin 1874. Ed Olms, Zrich 1981. II, pp 245 ss) In his Book of Kings, Firdawsi describes chess as an Indian invention from the country of Hind brought to Persia during the brilliant period of Cosroes I the Great (531-579) also named Nushirwan or Anushirawan. Firdawsi (the paradisian) does not describe the movement of the pieces, but all of the actual chessmen are mentioned, and its initial placement includes the central position of the king and his counsellor anked by elephants, riders and rukhs, with foot soldiers in front of them. The story stresses a rather bizarre point: The Indian ambassadors who brought chess to the Persian court outlined as a condition that, upon pain of the forfeit of further tributes, the wise men of Persia had to discover not only the placement of the pieces, but also its rules of movement. This task was given to them to be accomplished without the aid of any previous documentaion. Give the order to those more used to Science to put before them the chess board and discuss among themselves the way to ascertain the rules of this noble game, to recognize by its name every piece, to x their movement and their cases, to study the pawns, the elephants and the rest of this army, the rooks and the knights, and the movement of the vizir and the king. No wise man in the world, even a legendary one, could ascertain the rules of movement of the chess pieces under these conditions unless they were not the result of a caprice but pre-determined by some kind of code implicit in the chess board. This code must necessarly be the numerological arrangement in the Safadi board shown above. Buzurdjmir, the legendary wise man in Firdawsis story, discovered the secret after one day and one night, and told the Persian king: O King of victorious fortune! I have studied these black gures and this chess board, and, thanks to the mighty Ruler of the World, I have realized completely the laws of the game. Firdawsis legend may or may not have a solid historical basis, although, according to Murray, his sources have the highest degree of reliability. The important fact to remember, however, is that it gives further proof that the rules of chess rules are not arbitrary. An underlying code was necessary if this legend is to make sense. Though Firdawsi writes more than 400 years following the assumed introduction of chess in Persia, his sources have been traced back towards the middle of the 6th century (C.E) as a continuous and solid chronological chain: (Van der Linde. Geschichte. I, pp 3-4. quotes Adolf Friedrich von Schack.Heldensage von Firdusi. In deutscher Nachbildung nebst einer Anleitung ber das iranische Epos. Berlin, Wilhem Hertz, 1865) King Cosroes I, an illustrious monarch, (he was responsible for translating the Hindu Panchatantram into the Pahlavi fables of Bidpay and Pilpay, later known n arabic as Kalila wa Dimna) ordered a compillation of any old Persian 21

documents connected with the history of the Sassanid dynasty. (Van der Linde (Geschichte... I, pp 3-4, n.2) Further attestation may be derived though the following sources: Albrecht Weber. Academische Vorlesungen ber indische Literaturgeschichte. Berlin. Ferd. Dmmler. 1852, pp. 196. A. Weber, Indische Skizzen, 1857, pp. 107-108. Th. Benfey. Pantschatantra, fnf Bcher indischer Fabeln, Mrchen und Erzhlungen. Leipzig, F.A. Brockhaus, 1859, I, pp.64 ). This material, coming from all provinces of his empire, was completed in 641 by a certain Danishwer under the tittle Chodai-Nameh (Book of the King) in Pahlavi. Towards the end of the 8th century Jaqub ben Leis, the founder of the Muslim dynasty of the Soarids, ordered its translation into Parsi, and the inclusion of further material in the chronological gaps. During the years 961-976 a Zoroastrian named Dakiki was in charge of putting it in verse, but he managed to complete only one thousand verses. Under Mahmud I (997-1030) the task was retaken by Firdawsi, who employed 12 years (999-1011) in writting the 60.000 verses of the Epos Shah-Nameh (Book of Kings) Even if the whole context is more legendary than historical, a historical conclusion can be drawn out of it. The same happens, by the way, in many mythological stories. To quote only a few examples: Cain and Abel reect the ght between nomad shepherds and stable land owners. Enoch, the biblical patriarch of occult knowledge, lived exactly 365 years, which signies the inclusion of the solar cicle as part of a legendary formulation. In keeping with the ways and means through which legend continues to play a signicant role in the accumulation of veriable historical fact, the Trojan war was long held to be a literary ction until the archaeologist Schliemann discovered the actual ruins of the old city. Legends often bear a scientical message expressed in allegorical language. This seems also to be the case with the invention of chess and the pretension implicit in Firdawsis tale that chess rules can be rediscovered. THE NATURAL SQUARE OF THE 8: REDISCOVERING A REDISCOVERY The Natural Square of the 8 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 56 55 54 53 52 51 50 49 64 63 62 61 60 59 58 57 The wise Buzurdjmir in Firdausis legend required one day and one night in rediscovering the laws of the earliest form of chess simply by examining or meditating over the board. His mental process can be followed regardless of whether one legendary man or many succesive groups of men took hundreds of years to achieve these results. Furthermore, Chess evolution from a mathematical exercise into a war game can be rediscovered anew by a procedure of logical thinking, which may be called Buzurdjmirs method. First of all, imagine that we are Buzurdjmir, and that we must determine the rules of chess and the movement of 6 dierent classes of pieces with no other help save direct observation of the board itself. A rst step is to numerate from 1 to 64 every square of the board as follows This is the so called natural square of the 8. and through it the rst question which arises is: How many grains of corn, or stones (calculi in Latin), or coins do we need to represent the 22

gures. The so-called Indian-Arabic numerals were not yet discovered, and the usual procedure of calculation involved the employ of calculi upon a board, most frequently the chess board. In modern terms: What is the sum of the arithmetical progression from 1 to 64? During his schoolboy years, the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss solved the following problem: How much is the sum of the rst 100 numbers?. Instead of proceeding like all his school comrades by adding up 1+2=3, 3+3=6, 4+ 6=10 etc. he realized that the rst and the last number (1+100) sum 101, like the second and the fore-last (2+99=101), and the third and the fore-fore last (3+98=101) and so on. Indeed, the problem can be rapidly solved by considering 50 pairs of numbers adding up to 101. Accordingly, 50x101= 5050. The same idea must have ocurred to Buzurdmir or to other people centuries before. To calculate the arithmetical progression upon the chess board, he considered 32 pairs of numbers adding up to 65 (1+64 = 65, 2+63 = 65, 3+62 = 65 etc). So 32x65 = 2080 stones, coins or grains of corn. The corresponding pairs of numbers can be represented graphicaly as the next gure shows. A geometrical expression of rare beauty with all lines and pairs of numbers joining at its vertex, or emanating from it is thereby produced. In an allegorical sense, the secret number of the chess board is not 64, but 65, because all other numbers are related to it. This polargram on the chess board expresses the visual correspondence between each pair of numbers of the Natural Square of the 8 adding up to 65. The Apex 65 reects two of the sacred numbers of God, 13x5. (It is interesting to notice that the same correspondence is kept in the Safadi board and in the so-called Magic Square of Mercury which we shall see later). Bidev compared it to the Rose of the winds. Gnostic or childish eyes could look at it as a pyramid seen from above or seen from below, wherepon it is easy to see how pyramids are the Gnostic emblem par excellence. From the central point 65, the apex of the Pyramid, 64 lines of emanation go to the square basis, showing 8 on each side. Symbologists interpret the Pyramid in a Gnostic context: The quadrate basis represents the Earth with the apex signifying both the starting point and the end goal. This is the symbolic factor of the point. What unites the base with the point is the triangular face, symbol of re (Pyros, in Greek), of divine manifestation (Moses in Sinai) and of creative forces. So, a Pyramid represents the whole Creation (Juan Eduardo Cirlot. Diccionario de Smbolos. Barcelona 1979. p. 365.- quoting Marc Saunier. La Lgende des Symboles. Paris 1911) The mental procedure involved in the method is the same as in the kabbalistic language known as atbash. In this code, each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet is replaced for another. The rst is substitued by the last, the second is replaced by the penultimate and so on. The best known example is Babel, written in Hebrew BBL. Beth, the second letter, is replaced by Shin, the 21th. Lamed, the 12th letter, is substitued by Caph, the 12 letter counting from the end. So, Babel appears as Sesac, as in Jeremiah 51:41. THE MERCURY BOARD A third step in the Buzurdjmir procedure. The two great diagonals in the 23

natural square of the 8 are exclusively formed by 4 pairs of numbers adding up to 65, so both diagonals produce the same constant sum of 260. Buzurdmir would certainly like to obtain also the same sum in lines and columns. In other words, to produce a Magic Square. Since in the rst line the numbers are too small and in the last line the numbers are too big, a sensible method is to interchange the placement of 4 pairs of numbers in each line and in each column. The result is the so-called Mercury board shown below. In the 16th century, Hyeronimus Cardanus and Cornrlius Agrippa von Nettesheim rediscovered the method, which is probably very ancient, dating back to Egypt. The proof that this is the method is given in a later mathematical manuscript of the 14th. century written by the Byzantine Moschopoulos and kept at the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris ) (Grec MS n. 652.) (Manuel Moschopoulos, born in Crete in 1394, dedicated his treatise on mathematics to his teacher Nicholas of Smyrna. Part of his work was printed in Europe in 1540, but the manuscripts on Magic Squares remained unknown untill 1886, when the historian Paul Tannery published them.(Lucien Grardin.Les carrs magiques. Dangles. 1986. p. 30) The Mercury board appeared in the Arab compilation of the Gnostic society known as the Brothers of Purity. It is also shown in a kabbalistic book on alchemy. An area which is so far unexplored is the connection between the magic squares of protochess with alchemy. The basic source is a treatise from the 16th century in Hebrew or Aramaeic with the tittle Esh Mosaref (The reners re) The data resides in Rafael Patai. The Jewish Alchemists. (Princeton University Press 1994. Cap. 36, p. 322.) The original book is lost, but Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-1689) found an Italian version and included it in his three volumes on Latin writtings: Kabbala denudata seu doctrina Hebraeorum transcendentalis et metaphysica atque theologica, printed in 1677, 1678 and 1684 in Sulzbach byr Abraham Lichtenthaler. Kabbalistic references to alchemy appear especially in the rst volume. Each magic square is dedicated to a given metal. The Mercury board was used for me-zahav (water of gold). What are the connections between the Mercury board and chess? Several exist, for as in any Magic Square, the movements of two chess pieces, step by step, vertically, horizontally or diagonally, are represented by reaching the constant sum of 260. Most important of all is the fact that the jumping rukh which accesses a third square vertically or horizontally, as depicted in the theory of Kohtz appears here in an astonishing manner despite starting from any square. After 8 jumps, the result is 260. After 4 jumps, half of it, or 130. This result is obtained with two alternative paths. In one of these are the numbers producing the pair 63+67=130. For instance (57-6)+(43-24)+(38-25)+(62-1) = 260. The numbers 63 and 67 are equidistant in 3 units to the mystical point 65. In another example, the conguration of the jumping rukh makes even more sense when choosing the combinations leading to the pairs 49+81=130. For example (57-24)+(43-6)+(61-20)+(47-2) = 260. The number 49 and 81 are equidistant from 65 in16 units. Moreover, 49 is the square of 7 and 81 the square of 9. So, like 7 and 9 these are the shoulders of the 8. Its squares 49 and 81 can be seen in mystical considerations as companions of the pyramidal 24

diusion of 65. Starting from any point, after 8 jumps the magical sum of 260 is constantly obtained. Moreover, half of the sum (130) is obtained after 4 jumps,and precisely with continuous partials sums of 49 and 81. 49 is the square of 7. 81 the square of 9. Both are equidistant in 16 units to the emanation of the square of the 8, the allegoric number 65. So, a jumping rook (or elephant if you prefer) not only existed in protochess, but is even older than other chess movements like the diagonal jump of the arabic All. Such mathematical exercises must be very old, und signify the rst drafts for the future game of chess, no matter if the stones performing the paths of 360 were animals or, probably much later, elements of the army. By the way, the Mercury board oers a clue for solving another mystery concerning the marked squares on the Ashtapada board. Fig. 7, taken from Murray, shows a historical and geographical evolution of the markings. So far, there is no satisfactory explanation of its meaning. Hyde, (Thomas Hyde. De Ludis Orientalibus. Oxford 1698. II. pp. 74 ) and Murray after him, supposed that in the race game of Ashtapada, played with dice, the marking indicated a safe case where a piece could be placed without being captured, but this speculative explanation is far from convincing. At least, it is questionable, since we need only to add in the oldest form of the board given by Hyde a further marking in 4 blocks of 4 numbers each, to obtain all the squares of the Mercury board where the original natural series of numbers from 1 to 64 remain unchanged. There is a good case in favour of another interpretation: The marked squares could serve, in my opinion, as a reminder of the procedure of building a Mercury board, persisting even today in a progresively mutilated form, despite that its initial arithmetical meaning has been forgotten. CONSTRUCTION OF THE SAFADI BOARD Up to a certain stage, poor Buzurdjmir has re-discovered many things which amount to only the movement of 3 chess pieces on the Mercury board. However this is not yet enough, since according to the task proposed to him, he has to ascertain the movement of six dierent kinds of pieces. There is another possibility, based on the same idea, to be tried when building up a magic square. Instead of interchanging pairs of numbers: 2-63, 3-62, 6-59 and 7-58, etc., we can interchange the more central ones: 3-62, 4-61, 5-60 and 6-59. Repeating this procedure in all the borders and in the next lines and columns, allows us to obtain a Magic Square, but this time no more and no less than the Safadi Board which was shown above. Buzurdjmir was inspired. He tried, from the Natural Square of the 8, to interchange numbers situated in more central points than those given in the Mercury procedure. This astonishingly simple method produces the tremendous result already commented. The procedure seems to have been re-discovered several times. Agrippa von Nettesheim makes a mention of it in his De occulta Philosophia (1533). A certain Molleweide made about it a dissertation in Leipzig 1816. (P. Bidev. Der Panmagische Torus 8x8 und die Panmagische Ebene 8x8. Igalo 1981. S. 3 .Typoscript) The Safadi board contains in itself all movements of all chess pieces, and even more. 25

The enlarged Knights jump (for instance, from a8 to d7, and from d7 to a6 etc) is characteristic of other pieces in other chess varieties, such as the chess in a 12x12 board described by Alfonso the Wise in 1283, and referred also as having been invented in India. The enlarged jump also produces the constant sum of 260 after 8 jumps. So, Buzurdjmir obtained a model more than adequate to dene 6 dierent types of movement. The second part of the task is easier. To ascertain the placement of the pieces brought together with the board is a matter for more generalized considerations. The most important, the King, must be placed in a central square whereby its rectilinear and diagonal movement, may cover all 64 cases. To his side, the adviser or farzin, which covers 32 cases of only one colour is placed. With the three jumping pieces are grouped together, one thing is clear, which is that the knight must remain between the other two, because its movement is also intermediate between a rectilinear and a diagonal jump. Historically, there seems to have been some initial confusion with regard to the respective placement of rook and al-l, and most likely the rook stood in the more central position, as in the Indian four-handed chess described by al-Adli. The al-l in the corner obtains more harmonic numbers after his obligatory rst jump (57+43 =100, 8+22 =30, 64+46 =110, 1+19 = 20. The rst jump of all four al-ls sum 260, the magical constant.) than if it were placed upon its actual squares. The 8 small pieces belong logically to the second rank. In any case, a solid and very important conclusion can be drawn from all this: The movements of the pieces are based in mathematical considerations that are older than the game of chess itself.

2.3

Hints Among Islamic Gnostics

Ziriab was the Persian musician who introduced chess from Baghdad to Cordoba in 822. The arabist Levi-Provenal indicates that Ziriab, arrived at the sea port of Algeciras/Gibraltar in 821, and was received there by a Jew named Mansur al Jehudi. Ziriab became the most popular personality in Cordoba during the caliphate of Abderrahman II, and promoted many cultural initiatives in the Cordoba court. He is best known for adding a fth string to the laud, the Arab sitar. 26

He brought Zoroastrian knowledge as well, reected in new astronomical celebrations and a lot of habits which soon became popular in Muslim Spain. Among them, the reference to number 13 as being connected with bad luck when misused, a superstition still widespread today all over the world. Since the time of Alderman I, Al Annuals, as Muslim Spain was named, was a refuge for the Ummayyads. This turn of events took place the very moment the Abbassides seized power in Baghdad. This context must be borne in mind when looking at the relationship between Cordoba and Baghdad. The proper fashion in Cordoba and in other small provincial courts was to imitate everything coming from Baghdad says the arabist Henri Peres about the 9th and 10th century of Muslim Spain. Chess was certainly in fashion. The Ummayad emir of Cordoba Mohammed I (852-886) played passionately against a servant named Aidun, who according to Ibn Hayyan was a strong chess player. Traces of Gnostic knowledge appear very soon in Cordoba with the disciples of the Brothers of Purity. As early as the middle of the 9th century, the whole Gnostic Encyclopedia had been translated and divulged by the mathematician Maslama al-Magriti (from Madrid!) and his disciple Al- Qirmani. A few centuries later, the kabbalist Abraham ben Ezra, also from the school of Cordoba, published a Hebrew poem on chess ascribing its invention to men of insight. Moreover, in other treatises he mentions the rst magic square of Saturn (3x3), which in my opinion was the rst step in the whole context of numerological correspondences in future chess. As seen in Chapter 2, other hints about the origins of chess appear in the two legends of Firdawsi. Abu al Quasim Mansur (not his real name, but an honoric tittle), nicknamed Firdawsi (932/42-1020/25) is the most reliable source for preIslamic chess in Persia. In his Book of Kings he describes chess as an Indian invention brought to Persia during the brilliant period of Cosroes I the Great (531-579) also named Nushirwan or Anushirawan. (Antonius van der Linde. Geschichte und Literatur des Schachspiels. Berlin 1874. Ed Olms, Zrich 1981. II, pp 245 ss.) The wisest man in the Persian court, Buzurdjmir, rediscovered the chess rules, the movement of every piece and its initial placement, with no other help than a deep study of the board itself . Buzurdjmir, the legendary wise man in Firdawsis story, discovered the secret and told the Persian king: O King of victorious fortune! I have studied these black gures and this chess board, and, thanks to mighty Ruler of the World I have realized completely the laws of the game. As I have shown in Chapter 2, this method can be followed step by step until one arrives at the invention of a Safadi magic square which explains everything The story tells also that Buzurdjmir made his discovery thanks to the Ruler of the Universe. If we accept that the wording of Firdawsis Epos and/or his sources (which are very reliable and can be traced back till the middle of the 6th century) is a very careful one, it is interesting to remember that Buzurdjmir thanks to the Ruler of the Universe could be translated as the factor 13 of Oskar Fischer, which enables a systematic rediscovery of chess movements. Firdawsi means the paradisian and it gives another hint about the relation27

ship between Gnostic authors and chess origins. As the historian M. Joel showed (Manuel Joel. Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte (1880), I, p.163. Quoted by Sholem JM, note in p. 395), paradise is an old talmudic allegory for Gnosis because of the tree of wisdom which grew there. Sholem points out that Origen (Contra Celsum VI, 33) indicated that the Gnostic sect of the Ophites used the same metaphor. Also St. Paul ( II Corinthians, 12,2-4) describes a man who was caught up into paradise and heard secret words that man may not repeat From this, Sholem concluded that Paul was privy to a strict Jewish tradition with roots in the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs and other esoteric-rabbinic sources from his time. There is a second chess author also nicknamed Firdawsi who lived in Turkey some 400 years after his Persian namesake. This Firdawsi al-Tahihal was a poet and historian at the court of Sultan Bayazid II (1481-1512), but the interesting point is that his chess treatise, completed in 1508, mentions much older sources and is preserved in two manuscripts under the title Shatranjj nama-i kabir. The content, as judged by the index of chapters, denes a Gnostic approach. The number of pages is 64, and there are 8 chapters. The rst one relates the invention of chess with the prophets Idris, Jimjid and Solomon. Idris appears again explaining chess rules in chapter 4, and chapter 5 explains the story of grains of corn linking it with Alexander the Great (Iskander) . Other chapters are more technical, but in the end, Firdawsi quotes several of the antecedent sources he had used, including Safadi, and signicantly, the Gnostic Brothers of Purity. Thus, the connection between chess authors and ancient Gnosis, Semitic as well as Hellenistic, is reinforced convincingly. 3:2 REJECTION OF DICE AND CHANCE ELEMENTS A most revolutionary feature in the invention of the chess is the deliberate exclusion of the dice which were widely used in many other games on these types of boards. After excluding the element of luck , redemption or victory depends basically upon individual eort and degrees of personal enlightenment. This is a message implicit in chess. Destiny and Hazard have no place in such an ethical system. Averbach used it as the axis of his theory that chess arose as a consequence of Hellenistic inuences which persisted from the time of Alexander the Great in the NW of India, and which underwent a revitalization during the 2nd. though the 4th. Centuries of our era. The aspect which stresses freewill as a pivotal factor is, therefore, the message engraved in the invention of chess even from its very beginning. In other words, chess could be dened as Greek thought pronounced in Gnostic language. This is also the picture given by the Xiang-qi or Chinese chess. The game of chess (as we know it) has been associated throughout its development with astronomical symbolism, a feature that was more overt in related games now long obsolete. The battle element of chess seems to have developed from a technique of divination in which it was desired to ascertain the balance of evercontending Yin and Yang forces in the universe. According to the Chinese literature this image-chess (hsiang chi) was developed during the reign of the Emperor Wu of the Northern Chou dynasty (+561 to +578), and the date of the rst treatise on the subject is denitely named as +569. The preface of 28

this by Wang Pao still exists. It appears that the pieces on the board in this divination technique represented the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations. This image-chess derived in its turn from a number of divination techniques which involved the throwing of small models, symbolic of the celestial bodies, on to prepared boards. Thus there was a dice element as well as a move element, and there were many intermediate forms between pure throwing and placement followed by combat moves. All these go back to China of the Han and pre-Han times, i.e. to the 4th. or 3rd. Century, and similar techniques have persisted down to late times in other cultures. On a parallel line of development numbered dice, anciently widespread, followed a related line of development which gave rise in +9th Century China to dominoes and playing-cards. (Joseph Needham. Thoughts on the origin of chess Cambridge 1962). Many of the Arabic chess manuscripts begin with a philosophical discussion about fatalism, symbolized by dice (hazard=azahar=ower, the ower indicating the Ace in Islamic dice) and the voluntarism implicit in chess. Later Islamic authors stated it more explicitly. I am particularly partial to the wording of the anonymous Arab author in the chess MS translated into beautiful Spanish by Pareja: As for their intimate sense, with the two games, chess and nard, the inventor intended to reproduce a lively outlook upon one of the most stubborn controversies known to mankind. Indeed, humanity and human consciousness is divided between the opposed doctrines of free will and predestination. Essentially the conict between the ability to choose freely or to act without election is mirrored in the respective achievements of chess and nard. One of those schools proclaims that the movements of the men, their acts and the happy or unfortunate consequences which come of them ow, by necessity, from a primum mobile, a rst cause which is external to them and their abilities, insofar as it is none other than an overarching God who who grants and prohibits. Subsequently, this school was divided. Those entertaining orthodox religious tendencies believed that this cause reected divine ordinance with regard to all creatures and creation, which it was not the role of man to thwart, much less question. In opposition, those of more naturalistic tendencies were of the persuasion that whatever causes came to bear upon the universe could be divined though inquiry into the favorable or adverse movements of the celestial spheres. The second school proposed that mans most prosperous outcomes came about through the appropriate exercise of knowledge, individual perception and volition. Conversely, ill-starred, or adverse outcomes were also dependent upon the poor exercise of free will, with misfortunes arising through the abandonment of free election or perversions of otherwise well informed, good judgement. The inventors of nard patterned the rules of this game to suit the opinion of the rst school, so that the two dice carry out the function of an external cause, thereby demonstrating the futility of human eort or the vanity of those who preferred to view personal decision making abilities and human eort as central to the development of actual circumstances. In nard, one sees with great clarity how victory in this game is nothing short of capricious. The spoils of 29

competition play no obvious favourite as the Unseen Hand is viewed as capable of assisting the inept, ignorant player in overcoming the wiles of more intelligent and capable opponents. In nard, to be embraced by the kindly disposition of the dice - the external cause - or abandoned by it, spells all there is to know about how victory is achieved or denied. On the other hand, the inventors of chess accommodated the laws of the second school. Implied in the dice-free aspect of chess is an external cause that works through the agency of each individual, and cannot be strictly typed. Rather, it grants two players equality of pieces and opportunity and an impartial theater of operations that will unavoidably correspond to the respective abilities of individuals to interpret a winning outcome according to intellectual skills received from God. Thus the game is based on free will, making it patently clear how those who best understand how to improvise freely with skill and willful determination are more likely to overcome those who make poor use of their abilities. The inventor linked this game with the art of the war, partly because war is among the most important of worldly aairs and partly because intellectual dexterity and free election are factors that lead to victory or defeat. As is evident, the desired result is only due to well calculated combinations, whereas defeat may easily be attributed to defects of planning and strategy. Through such features, chess mimics all other ordinary matters one might encounter in the business of life. Based mostly on Arabic materials, The Codex of Alfonso X of Castile (1283 C.E.) deals extensively with this question, describing chess as a brain game (seso), dice as a game of luck (ventura) and the nard / backgammon group of games as intermediate between the other two. In allegorical style, Alfonso summarizes the discussion, deciding in favour of chess as being the more superior of the group - the most honest of all games, as he put it. The problem of freewill and human fate appears in the Islamic world during the 7th century as a result of theological contests against Jews and Christian sects in Syria and Iraq. Pareja (LRM, p.112) mentions the role of St. John Damascene, and before him, the Muslim Mabad al-Guhani, executed in Basra in 80/699 because of his ideas about freewill in human destiny. With its source in the Quran, the conict began once Mohammed employed both opposing attitudes, in favour or against freewill, according to the compelling needs of the particular moment of Islamic development. It has been noticed that during a time when the Prophet had to struggle against powerful opponents, a Sura written in Mecca is in favour of freewill, which is understandable. In contrary fashion however, once Islamic preeminence had consolidated, the texts dictated afterwards during the Medina period, insist in absolute divine omnipotence and predestination in human fate. Pareja concluded that being this the trend during the last part of Mohammed teaching, the community of his followers adopted it and the orthodox doctrine derived predominantly from determinism in the sense expressed by many Surae (Quran 16/95;16/39;6/39 among others).where the message is: Allah guides those He wants to preserve, and He leads to confusion those who He wants to destroy. An example among 30

many others is Sura VI (Cattle, Livestock): 39. Those who reject our signs are deaf and dumb,- in the midst of darkness profound: whom Allah willeth, He leaveth to wander: whom He willeth, He placeth on the way that is straight. Therefore, fundamentalism could not look with sympathy at the voluntarist message implicit in chess philosophy. The whole question had important political implications too. A serious rupture inside Islam happened because of the rst struggle for leadership after the death of Ali in 40/660, who was married to Fatima, a daughter of Mohammed. These are the roots of the Shia, the party supporting the rights of Ali and his descendants which avails an issue that splits the Muslim world even unto modern times. Shiite veneration of Ali borders upon the mythical (Pareja LRM pp.220-221) with regard not only to the war accomplishments of their model but also because of his wisdom and secret knowledge. Two books of esoteric content about the future history of the world are attributed to Ali (Pareja LRM, p.210). The ill-fated son of Ali, Hussain, killed in the battle of Karbala (61/680), is a persistent focus of mourning among Shiites. On the other hand, Sunnites (from sunna: the way to be transited) accepted the new chain of Ummayad Caliphs through whom the separate order became established. Hussain is referred to in the hadith or tradition as a chess player, who used to hail other players during their games (Murray p.191). In contrast, his murderer , the founder of the Ummayad dynasty, Yazid ben Muawiya (D. 64/683), is mentioned by Ben Khallikan as a player of nard (Murray p.193). Muawiya also appears in a story which depicts him as a poor chess player and a bad loser: He was a bad chess player and a slave girl played very well. When she met a better chess rival, Muawiyya ordered that the couple was buried alive inside a box. (Wieber. op. cit. pp. 218-219).Perhaps this story was inserted a posteriori by the Abbasid late propaganda to deteriorate his image (Wieber op. Xit pp. 60-61). The whole chess issue was not merely rhetorical, because its political implications were explosive. The Ummayad Caliphs could be regarded as having usurped the rights of Ali, Fatima, Hussain and Muhammads family. Therefore, the doctrine of determinism and divine decree gave them a justication to reinforce their authority, basing its origin in Gods wishes. Byzantine emperors had been doing the same. According to Pareja. the court poets of this period hailed the Ummayad rule in Damascus as foreseen in the eternal projects of Allah. History shows many other later examples of dictators all over the world justifying their crimes upon the basis of Gods decree. The voluntarism implicit in chess explains the scarcity of references to our game during Ummayad rule and its possible scrutiny from the legal point of view. Wieber (p.64) in his exhaustive reappraisal, concludes that the rst reference in Arabic literature, although not completely solid, dates from around 720 A.D. The next, which is more secure, was in the year 750, and the third one, this time incontestable, arrives in 791 under Abbasid Caliphs. Byzantine inuences had been hegemonic in the cultural world of the Ummayads, but were progressively substituted under the Abbasids by others of Iranian kind, because the strength 31

of the new dynasty had its roots in Persia (Vernet, p. 16). As such, Chess appears to have been regarded as a weapon during the terrible civil war. Written references to Islamic chess ourish in the rst Abbasid period, and to some extent, these can be read as political propaganda inserted a posteriori. From the moment of this rst rupture within Islam, chess suers though the inuence of two opposite forces deciding upon its survival and conguration: One, having clear Persian roots, shows an infusion of oriental knowledge and a rationalistic approach. It has frequent historical or political links with Shiite movements and is, in general, favourable to chess. The other orientation is reluctant or even hostile to the acceptance of the game. This has pure Arabic roots, and is inclined to traditional, orthodox thinking in every conicting matter of judgement. Both tendencies alternate among the ideological leaderships during the rst centuries and their discrepancies were reected inside the Sunnite schools of jurisprudence. With reference to games, evidence of debate appears frequently in most of chess manuscripts and other texts such as the following comment by Masudi (Wieber, op. cit. P. 151): A Muslim theologian says: Chess is mutazilla, and nard is gabr. Because the chess player relies only upon his free-will and his wishes, whereas a nard player must obey the decree of dice. 3. 3:3 CHESS IS MUTAZILLA Gabarites (from gabara, to press with violence) denied the freedom of human decisions, and man as well as all other beings was subject to the divine decree, gabr, of Allah. Mutazilites were named so because of the term mutazila, which gives the idea of separation, dissidence, retirement and abstention. They were supporters of freewill and of rationalistic methods in dogmatic maters, as well as the analysis of written questions. The founder of the mutazzila-movement was Wasil ben At (D. 748, during the civil war). The question of freewill was packed together with other conictive issues such as the intermediate situation of the sinner between the believers and the unbelievers, or whether the Quran had been created or not. The passionate, and frequently bloody confrontations related to delicate implications such as the famous passages in which Mohammed appears talking to Moses. The most radical theological school, the Hanbalites vehemently supported the idea that, to the letter, all the words in the Quran were dictated by Allah himself, preserved through eternity and therefore of an uncreated nature. (Pareja LRM, p.127) Geographically, the center of the Mutazillite movement was the city of Basra. Older than Baghdad, there concentrated the followers of freewill and neo-Pythagorean groups such as the Brothers of Purity During the 9th century, in Basra and afterwards in Baghdad, a secret society of Gnostic philosophers exercised great intellectual inuence. They called themselves Brothers of Purity and published a sort of Encyclopedia consisting in 50 letters or chapters on the most varied philosophical subjects. In one of the chapters Magic Squares, numbers are shown on boards ranging from 3x3 till 9x9. The Arab title of this famous work is Rasa-il ijwan al-safa. It inuenced many other works in later years, especially in Muslim Spain. (See for instance E. Garcia Gomez. Alusiones a los Ijwan al Safa en la poesia ar bigo andaluza. 32

Al Andalus (1939), pp 462-465). They didnt give explanations about the secrets implicit in the numerological arrangement of the Mercury chess board, because they acted as a neoPythagorean secret society. Knowledge belonged only to the initiated, and initiation was done step by step. The master of each group was highly respected. Disciples were chosen following rigid criteria, including heiromancy and physiognomic observation. Several names are known, as for instance, the Jew Sharon Ben Samuel, nicknamed the Father of all secrets. The group was multiracial and showed a peculiar inter-religious approach. The Andalusian Al-Dabbi, who studied in Baghdad at the end of the 9th century, wrote that they were Muslims of all sects, both orthodox and unorthodox, Unbelievers, Zoroastrians, Materialists, Atheists, Jews and Christians. He also states that in the meetings and discussions, all they put aside the dogmatic books of their respective religions, and referred only to the free reason. A signicant characteristic of the Brothers of Purity was their interest in esoteric and philosophical areas, among them the importance of Fate and Freewill in human destinies. We know that this school was a voluntarist one, thanks to two famous Andalusian disciples. The rst is Mohammed Ben Massara (883-931). He was a follower of the Egyptian mystic Du-l-Nun, created a school in Cordoba and his disciples were prosecuted by the Caliph from 951 on because of their doctrine of Free-will, their negation of the physical reality of infernal punishment and their pantheistic ideas based in neo-Pythagorean gnostics such as Philo, Porrius and Proclus (9). The second is the poet Ibn Hani of Sevilla (D. 973), referred to by his enemies as man of corrupt habits, a formula customary during the waves of fundamentalism. He went to Egypt to serve the Fatimites and two verses of one of his poems in honour of the ruler Yafar ben Ali express indirect chess connections: It shall be what you want, not what the Fate wills Take a decision! You alone are the Almighty! Therefore, Islamic fundamentalism could not look with sympathy at the voluntarist message implicit in chess philosophy. The whole question had important political implications too. 3:4 POLARIZATION BETWEEN TWO PLAYERS: A feature of many circles of Gnostic thinking of all times is dualism, the acceptance of two polar principles and their emanations: Light and Darkness, Good and Evil . Dualism was peculiar to Iranian religion in ancient and medieval times. A lucid evaluation of dualism as a fundamental element of the Gathas is that of W. B. Henning: Any claim that the world was created by a good and benevolent god must provoke the question why the world, in the outcome, is so very far from good. Zoroasters answer, that the world had been created by a good and an evil spirit of equal power, who set up to spoil the good work, is a complete answer: it is a logical answer, more satisfying to the thinking mind than the one given by the author of the Book of Job, who withdrew to the claim that it did not behoove man to inquire into the ways of Omnipotence. As Sarton states Dualism, such as was elaborated in the Zoroastrian reli33

gion, is rooted in the deepest recesses of the human conscience. The inventor or inventors of the chess game expressed implicitly such message in a codied manner from the moment they designed chess as a battle between two armies. or, more important, such polarization tted in well with the Zeitgeist during the chess expansion. The following passage from the Gathas (Y. 30.3-4) is fundamental to understanding Iranian dualism: The two primeval Spirits who are twins were revealed [to me] in sleep. Their ways of thinking, speaking, and behaving are two: the good and the evil. And between these two [ways] the wise men have rightly chosen, and not the foolish ones. And when these two Spirits met, they established at the origin life and non-life and that at the end the worst existence will be for the followers of Falsehood and for the follower of Truth the Best Thinking. Islamic hostility to dualism also inuenced the Zoroastrian communities in Persia. In fact, condemnation of dualists was almost a topos in Muslim refutations of Manichean, Mazdakite, and even Mazdean doctrines; the last was, however, given special attention. The intellectual atmosphere during the middle of the 8th. Century, is summarized by R. Frye as follows: It is clear that the religious situation under the early Abbasids was quite uid, with gnostic ideas entering Shiite beliefs, with dualism, early mysticism and a host of other tendencies in the air. After the Muslim conquest of Persia and the exodus of many Zoroastrians to India and after having been exposed to both Muslim and Christian propaganda, the Zoroastrians, especially the Parsis in India, went so far as to deny dualism and to view themselves as outright monotheists. After several transformations and developments one of the dening features of the Zoroastrian religion thus gradually faded and has almost disappeared from modern Zoroastrianism. An extreme form of Zoroastrian dualism is represented by the sect of Mani, or Manichaenism. As with the problem of decree and destiny, the polarization implicit in chess had an expression in the confrontation between Manichaeans and orthodox Muslims. The former created a syncretic movement named the Khurramdin (in Persian, literally the happy religion) which was half Muslim half Manichaean. Its leader was a certain Yusuf ben Ibrahim. This group, based mainly around Bukhara and Samarkand, was prosecuted actively . Yusuf and many of his followers were executed by the caliph Mahdi in 161/778. After this came a more serious revolt led by a certain al-Muqanna the veiled prophet of Khurassan who claimed to be a reincarnation of other prophets. From 775 to 785 the movement spread in Transoxiana. A similar group of rebels directed by Babak in Azarbaidjan was also prosecuted and destroyed. Frye has also described a persistent Zoroastrian inuence among Christian and Jews living in Iran during early Islamic times. Christians were almost exclusively Nestorians and the top post of their church from 780 to 823, in the hands of Timoteos I, was able to secure under the Abbasids not only its maintenance but also its expansion. In the middle of the ninth century a regular missionary activity to the Turks and to China began... In the end the Nestorian were victorious and some entire tribes in Mongolia were converted. 34

Ruins of Christian cloisters in Turfan and elsewhere in Chinese Turkistan have been found and Syriac inscriptions testify to the success of the Nestorian mission as late as Mongol times. Sects of mystical kind ourished also among the Jews from Iran, and famous names are Anan ben David in the time of caliph Mansur (754-775), and later Benjamin of Nivahand, Daniel ben Moses from Qumis, as well as Musa al Nikrisi from Gurgant, a friend of al-Beruni. The history of eastern ???? is very little known and much work is needed before one can even begin to reconstruct the history of Jews in Iran. We know the names of Jewish scholars of heretical bent from the east, such as Abu Isa from Isfahan, Yugdan of Hamadan, Mushki from Qum and, the most famous of all, Hivi from Balkh, summarizes Frye (op.it. p.138). Iranian dualism spread widely east and west of the Iranian world, especially through Manicheism. Traces can still be found in Central Asian and particularly Tibetan cosmogonies. In the West, although the connections are uncertain and the historical development dicult to reconstruct, religious dualism can be identied in the beliefs of Priscillianus and his followers in the late Roman empire, the Paulicians in the Byzantine empire, and later, the Bogomils. Has this religious atmosphere inuenced the design and the evolution of the chess game? Speculation is unavoidable, because of lack of documents. But chess evolution, its ideological acceptance and its spread in Central Asia and China can be considered as possibly linked with the religious situation. There is however a good case in favour of such philosophical and religious elements joining the game of chess in this path. A geographical coincidence between the areas where pre-Islamic chess can be detected, and the central Asiatic roads and cities tightens such ties. 3. 3:5 DESIGN OF THE GAME AS A MODEL OF WAR The oldest board games identied as such in Egypt are related to astrology and divination. Then follow mathematical exercises implicit in the boards, games of alignment and race games with dice like Senet. Hunt games seem to be a later achievement, but whatever the respective antiquity of the dierent kinds of play could be, war games like chess or draughts should be in any case posterior to magicalastrological-mathematical exercises upon boards. Above all other chess designs (astrological, mathematical etc.), symbolic war was the most successful choice. Again, this fact could have originated as the result of intellectual harmony between the chess message and the ideas stirring within gnostic groups. These ideas can be perceived in a poem by the Andalusian gnostic Ibn Hani, a former member of the Brothers of Purity. Signicantly, the poem was written during his exile in Fatimite Egypt due to the intrigues of Islamic fundamentalism in Cordoba. The poem describes a battle between two parties, the Darkness of the night and the Light of the rising sun, giving a long enumeration of the stars involved in the ght, and thereby attesting to his astronomical knowledge. The poem was published and translated by the great Spanish arabist E. Garcia Gomez. (El libro de las banderas de los campeones de Ibn Said al Magribi. Madrid 1942. pp 55 and 204). The mystical image of stars as armies seems to be 35

an old Semitic one. The reference comes from Isaiah, 40,26 Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these: he leads out their army and numbers them, calling them all by name. Hence the term Yahveh Sebbaot in the famous Keduschai in Isaiah 6:3. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, they cried one to the other. All the earth is lled with his glory!. The expression Sebbaoth also reappears in the Sanctus of Christian liturgy in its original Hebrew form. Sebbaoth can be translated as armies or as stars. (Also in Arabic the root sb means the rise of a star). There are many other examples in the Bible of this image. For instance in Psalm 147, 4, Deuteronomy 17,3, II Kings 17,16, Jeremiah 8,2, Baruch 3, 34 (Vernet, p. 54. Notes 120-121) Allegorical armies were seen as indications of the geographical location of chess origins. The kabbalist, mathematician and analysts of the Bible Abraham ben Ezra (1089-1164), in his famous chess poem, refers to the inventors of chess as men of insight, without mentioning any specic country or period of time. He doesnt mention anything about India, and a man of his erudition and so critical minded would certainly have surveyed all the relevant aspects of chess origins for any written evidence. His references to chess are biblical. Red pieces are considered as Edomim and the black men are the Kuschnim. Among the greatest authorities in biblical analysis, Ben Ezras choice of words must be borne in mind in the question of chess origins, insofar as the question seems to have prevailed in Muslim Spain or amid his travels to northern Africa, Palestine, and later through Italy, and France. The terms are somehow misleading. Edom, the eldest son of Isaac was betrayed by his brother Jacob, who stole his hereditary right in exchange of a dish of red beans. Edom, the red, gives the name of the land to his tribe, the Edomites, who occupied Palestine centuries before the arrival of the Israelites. Located south of Moab in the area to the south and west of the Dead Sea, in Greek and Roman times this territory was also known as Idumea. Several names of its kings are quoted in Gen. 36, 31-33: Bela, son of Beor, and his successor Jobab. (Because of this name, there is a rabbinic tradition considering Job a rich Edomite, thus dating the book to the time of Israels captivity in Egypt and even attributing its redaction to Moses, a theory rejected by modern scholars.) Moses asked for permission to traverse their territory, but the Edomites refused, which initiated a hostile relationship lasting for centuries. During Davids reign, Joab slaughtered the Edomites and one of the survivors, Adad, is mentioned in I Kings, 11:14 as a foe of Solomon, perhaps leading a guerrilla war against him. The seventh Davidic King, Joram, fought also against Edom, which was occupied around 800 B.C.E. by the tenth Davidic King Amasias (II Kings, 14:7). Kush oers some diculties. The second river of the Paradise is Gihon, which encircles the land of Chus (Gen 2:13) and some interpretations refer to the Kassites as a tribe living eastwards from the Tigris with a period of splendour occurring between 1600-1200 B.C.E. In Gen. 10:6 Kush is mentioned as a son of Cam and therefore, the black Kushnim have been traditionally identied es Ethiopians (river Gihon would then be the Nile. However, the next verse 36

states that sons of Kush were Seba and Evila, clearly eponyms of Arabic tribes. The land of Kush is not the actual Ethiopia, and would rather be situated in northern Sudan. It was an Egyptian province during many centuries, with its capital in Nepata, near the site of Meroe in the Upper Nile. Around 736 B.C.E., the relationship of power reversed and at the same time when Assyria destroyed Israel, the Ethiopians were dominating some parts of the Nile delta. Their rst contact with Israel occurs in II Kings, 17:4, at which time Ethiopia had conquered southern Egypt and created the XXV Dynasty to whom king Oseas asked for help against the Assyrians. Thus, an old Kabbalistic tradition seems to have connected the chess invention with Gnostic groups in Egypt and Mesopotamia. 2. 3:6 THE ISKUNDREE GAME Keats has recently shown an enigmatic board game in a Hebrew manuscript from the Vatican Library. Its signature is 171 (Asseman, Bibliothecae apostol Vatic, Codd manuscr. Catalogus. Romae 1756, vol I, pp 134 ) and the date is allegedly the 13th century. Its content refers partly to chess, but there is also a square board of 9 x 9 cases, almost half of them bearing the numbers from 1 to 9, and the indication that the playing stones are 4 challengers and 3 defenders arranged upon the long diagonal. To explain the game, the Hebrew text provides seven chapters and a long list of possible situations such as: In case of 1 and 9, 1 defeats 9. In case of 8 and 1, 8 defeats 1. In case of 1 and 1 the challenger defeats the defender... and so on. The same text, but without diagram, appears in the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum, an interesting didactic work aimed at the education of medieval princes and kings. Its Arabic name is Sirr al-asrar and the rst known compilation was done in Bhagdad in the 8th century by Yahya ibn al-Batrik, a Christian-Nestorian who worked as translator in the court of alMamun. According to him, he found the original book in the temple of Hermes Trismagestis (referred to as Homer the Greatest) in a volume written in letters of gold. Yahya translated the text rst to the rumi, and then into Arabic. The term rumi refers more frequently to Byzantine Greek or other Christian languages, but other times indicates Syriac, usually employed as a link of transmission between Greek and Arabic. So, the origin is most probably Hellenistic. The Sirr al asrar had three translations in Europe. The rst one,in Latin, was done in Spain by Johannes Hispalensis, a Jew also named Avendehut (a corruption of Ibn Dawud) who was working in Toledo between 1135 and 1153. The second one, also in Spain, was a Hebrew version from the 13th century done by Judah al Harizi around 1190-1218, Edited and translated by Moses Gaster. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1907. pp. 879-913; 1808, Part I. pp. 111162 ) and diers from the others because of a chapter on alchemy. Derived from this version is the Latin translation by Philip of Tripoli. In the 13th century, the circle of translators of King Alfonso the Wise produced a translation into Castilian under the tittle Poridat de las poridades or Secret of the Secrets. I have been using the edition by Lloyd A. Kasten (Madrid 1957). The content starts with the attribution of the work to Aristotle, teacher of Alexander the Great. The King had already conquered Persia and had di37

culties in matters of government, so he asked for help in a letter to Aristotle, who refuses to travel to Persia because of his age, but sent instead the treatise of secrets. There are 8 chapters, dealing with matters such as royal behaviour, justice, military tactics, physiognomy, medical preventions and even astrological mineralogy.In the chapter dealing with war secrets appears the text which the Hebrew manuscript connects with a diagram of 9 x 9. The King should never begin a battle without using rst several esoteric calculations which must be known only by the initiated, because it serves as a prediction of the nal result of the contest. The secret method applies not only to war, but to any dispute between two parties, collective or individual. The method consists in the Gematric inquiry of the names of the contenders. After obtaining its numerical value, 9 units must be subtracted once and again until the nal result ranges from 1 to 9. Then the list of all possible situations (in case of 2 and 9, 9 wins against 2, etc.) foretells which party shall obtain the victory. When the names of both contenders have the same nal value, the list explains, depending if the number is impair (unpaired? - impaired?) or not when a challenger defeats the defender. One of the examples is as follows: The Gematric value of Moses is 345. Subtracting 9 units successively the nal result is 3. The Hebrew letters of Amalech sum 340, and the division by 9 end nally in 6. Then, according to the list, 6 wins against 3 and Amalech would defeat Moses. Because of this, Moses decided that his troops should be led by Josuah, whose Gematric value is 397, with a nal gure of 1 after subtracting 9 many times. The 1 triumphs against the 6 of the defeated Amalech. The same reason, the text says, explains the victory of Abner against king Agad, (The story is interesting, but I checked it with a calculator and saw that the given calculation is wrong, because the real rest of Amalech after subtracting 37 times 9 is 7 and not 6, According to the list, both Moses (345 and 3 als end rest) and Josuah (397 and 1 als nal rest) would win against the 7 of Amalech, but 6 would have defeated the 1 as well as the 3.) The text says that this is the great prove of the prophet Daniel (an anachronism if Moses had actually used it) and that men of science call it the calculation of Alexander. So, the diagram in the Vatican manuscript is titled the iskundree game. The rationale of the game remains enigmatic. The iskundree game occurs in the Talmud (Shebuoth 29 a) and Keats gives a list of interpretations: A game played with pieces on a board (Rashi), a game played with small pieces of wood (Rabbenu Nissim or Nissim Gerondi, 14th century), a childrens game with counters (Nathan ben Jechiel), a game with little dogs (Rabbi Hannanael ben Hushiel). An interesting point is another Talmudic reference (Kiddushin 21 b) where two judges are conducting an argument, and one says to the other: When you were at Mar Samuels academy you wasted your time playing iskundree. Keats points out that this reference gives unambiguous evidence for iskundree as early as the third century AD. Iskundree refers to Alexander and is also a toponom for many cities in Persia and central Asia which preserved a Hellenistic heritage. The number of Iskundree cities varies in the references.. Plutarch (De Alexandri Fortuna 1, 5. 38

Moralia p. 328e) says there were 70. In the Arabic literature appears a long list of at least 30 cities in India, Iran and the Middle East. From The Encyclopedia of Islam, (H.A.R. Gibb, J.H. Kramers, E. Levy-Provenal, J. Schacht. Leyden 1960-London/ N.Y 1973) the following cities can be considered in the question of the place where chess was possibly born.( The notes are from Richard N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia Chap. 3: Central Asia before the Arab conquest. Weidenfeld. London 1975.) In Sogdiana: Alexandria Eschate, 50 km to the NE of Tashkent, several toponoms point towards probable foundation by Alexander. Its inhabitants expanded creating colonies in Mongolia and China. Cfr. S.G. Klyashtornyi, Sur les colonies sogdiennes de la Haute Asie. Ural-altaische Jahrbcher (Wiesbaden 1961), XXXIII,pp. 95-7. Their religion was Mazdeism, but there are also traces of Manichaeism, Nestorianism and Buddhism. Kudama (BGA, VI, 265) mentions Samarkand al-Dabusiyya, the actual Ziandin in the zone of Bukhara, Al-iskandariyya alKuswa (identied as Khudjand), in the Ferghana valley as also having been founded by Alexander. In Southern Bactria (Afghanistan) the capital was Balkh, called the mother of cities by the arabs. The tradition says that Zarathustra taught there. Alexandria Paropanisades has a dubious identication (Gazna or Begram, north from Kabul). In NW India (Gandhara or Punjab) there are many Sikandara ( Times Atlas of the World. Map 30): Alexandria Bukephalos, in the right side of river Hydaspes, near the actual Djalalpur, and another. Alexandria in the river Acesines (Cenab), near its conuence with the Indus . Alexandria para Sorianois, is also in India. Alexandri Portus is the actual Karachi. In northern Bactria, (Khuttal or Tadzikistan) there were several Iskondrt besides Balkh. Alexandria Oxiane (in the Oxus: Djaybun) Alexandria Eschate, dierent from the other, in the upper Oxus superior, and other Alexandria in Bactria and Sogdiana are also evident. Rusta pretended that his home city Isfahan was founded by Alexander. Another trace is Eskandari, 110 Km to the west of de Isfahan. Khwaritzm, at the Aral Sea, was also Iskundri. Merv was the strategical connection between central Asia and the Sassanid empire, fortied by Antiochus I (Strabo XI.516). Herat, the crossing of roads towards India. The cultural center of Jundisapur impressed the arabs especially because of its medical school. Greek neo-Platonists took refuge there when Justinian closed the Academy. It was a center of translations from Greek, Sanskrit and Syriac. 2. 3:7 LINKAGE OF VICTORY WITH THE SHAH-MAT IDEA The idea of Shah mat is a characteristic feature of the Persian chess game which doesnt appear in fourhanded chess, in astrological chess or when chess is played with dice. Also in other war games, as in checkers, victory is obtained by mere captures, and most probably the same happened in basic forms of protochess. The three jumping pieces, Rook, Knight and Elephant were comparatively less powerful in movement than an enemy king, which could easily occupy cases out of its line of action, as Kohtz has shown. 39

The German historian Johannes Kohtz (1843-1918) supposed that in the protochess the Rook was also a jumping gure, with a mobility limited to a third case. So, the squares accessible to a Rook in h1 would be f1 and h3 and later in the game f3, d3, d1, b1, b3, b5, d5, f5, h5, h7, f7, d7 and b7. His theory makes a lot of sense, (in spite of Murrays rejection after long arguments by post), because the three jumping pieces (All, Knight and Rook) represent a diagonal, hook-curved and rectilinear movement of the same range. It also expresses a perfect ranking order: The King and the Knight are the only pieces which can move to any of the 64 cases. The Firzan has half of the board = 32. The Rook half of it = 16 cases. And the All, half of it = 8. The striking fact, unnoticed by Kohtz in his last work of 1917, is that a jumping Rook produces also the same magic sum of 260 in the Safadi or in the Mercury board. For instance: 57 - 6 - 43 - 24 - 40 - 27 - 54 - 9 = 260. The same happens in the previous and more common magic square of Mercury. The four corners of each quadrant of 4 x 4 in the magic board sum half of the constant, 130. This reinforcement of Kohtzs theory seems to me decisive. The marvelous Safadi board has, in all probability, predetermined the different movements and classes of pieces in protochess. However, once the Arabs acquired the game from the Persians, the Rook evolved into a long ranged piece, becoming the most powerful element of the chess army. This evolution can be explained logically as a necessity once the idea of check mate has appeared, again according to Kothz In the rst legend of Firdawsi, the game rediscovered by Buzurdjmir was as follows: The sage has invented a battleeld, in the midst (of which) the King takes up his station. To left and right of him the army is disposed, the foot-soldiers occupying the rank in front. At the kings side stands his sagacious counsellor advising him on the strategy to be carried out during the battle. In two directions the elephants are posted with their faces turned towards where the conict is. Beyond them are stationed the war horses, on which are mounted two resourceful riders, and ghting alongside them on either hand to left and right are the turrets ready for the fray. By the number of pieces it is easy to know that in this game the board was of 8 x 8 squares, though nothing is said about the rules of movement or the aim of the game. This gap is lled in the second Firdawsian chess legend about two half brothers Gau and Talhend (two typical Persian names), the latter being killed by the former during a civil war. To explain to the queen of Hend who was the mother of both how her son came to die, the game of chess, which represented a battle, was invented. But it is a dierent game. The board is 10 x 10 and had perhaps a dividing line in the middle, as in todays Chinese chess because the text says: This (the game) represents a trench and a battle eld on to which armies had been marched. A hundred squares were marked out on the board for the maneuvering of the troops and the kings. which is also a board of 10 x 10 cases where is impossible to build a perfect Caissan magic square like Safadis. This time the movement of the pieces is described; There are three pieces jumping to a third square in diagonal, rectilinear or hook-curved direction. But there is 40

a fourth piece which was the most powerful of all: None could oppose it, but it attacked everywhere in the eld. This piece must be the long-ranging Rook, the most powerful gure of the set. Again, according to the Kohtzs theory, instead of the previous jumping Rook, the long ranking Rook was adopted as well in the 8 x 8 board as a necessity once a checkmate becomes the main goal of the game. Check and checkmate have already appeared, as the beautiful text explains: If a player saw the king during the struggle he called out aloud, King, beware! and the king then left his square, continuing to move until he was hemmed in. This occurred when every path was closed to the king by castle, horse, counsellor or the rest of the army. The king, gazing about in all directions, saw the army encircling him, water and trenches blocking his path and troops to left and right, before and behind. Exhausted by toil and thirst, the king is rendered helpless; that is the decree which he receives from the revolving sky. Where did the new idea came from? Since the moment when the fate of the king decides the victory in the game, the value of this piece increases enormously because of its divinity and inviolability. In a way, chess has become a monotheistic game. The cultural atmosphere in ancient Persia ts well with the implicit idea. In contrast to Greece, were a king was only primus inter pares, basically equal in his human nature to his subordinates, a Persian Shah in Shah was worshiped almost as a God. The ruler possessed a special quality in the eyes of his subjects, which was called farn or farr in New Persian, farrah in Middle Persian, xvarana in Avestan. Originally meaning ife force, activity or splendour, it came to mean victory, fortune and specially the royal fortune. (R. Frye.op.cit. p.Cool) There is a well known story in the biographies of Alexander the Great. At his beginning, he was a normal Greek leader, but after conquering the Persian throne he warmed to way Persian courtiers treated him as a God. He intended to receive the same proskinesis from his countrymen, but Callistenes refused to genuect and was murdered in revenge by Alexanders hand. The agon in chess and its voluntarist message points basically to a Hellenistic background. But Shah-mat in chess, an expression which has kept its Persian root in all languages during the chess evolution, may have its origin in the inuences irradiating from Persian cultural ground. The Jewish Gnosis of the earliest times and several circles based in Hellenistic and Persian areas may also have left its trace. According to Gershom Sholem in his Die jdische Mystik (op. cit. p. 47), the main point of spiritual considerations was, without doubt the mystic of the Throne, the so-called Merkaba Gnosis, inspired in the famous vision described in Ezekiel 1. Die Thronwelt bedeutet fr den jdischen Mystikern, was fr die hellenistischen and frhchristlichen Mystiker dieser Epoche, die die Religionsgeschichte als Gnostiker und Hermetiker kennt, das Pleroma (Die Flle), die Lichtwelt der Gottheit mit ihren Potenzen, onen und Herrschaften ist. Der jdische Mystiker schpft, wenn auch von verwandten Antrieben geleitet, seine Sprache aus dem ihm gemssen religisen Begriswelt Merkaba Gnosis is relatively well documented. Its oldest form originated 41

in chapter 14 of the Ethiopian Book of Henoch and its literature ourishes particularly between the 5th and 6th century C.E. The ideological - geographical connections are mainly Sassanid Iran and the Byzantine empire, whereas it coincides also in places and timing with the appearance of a game characterized by basileomorphism, as scholars call the spiritual ow inside the Merkaba movement. So, the Shah in chess, and its inviolability ts in well with the intellectual atmosphere of reverence towards the image of God as a King so characteristic of the Jewish Gnosis of this period and in this area. Conclusion: The precedent considerations clearly show a chain of esoteric traces in the origins of chess. Protochess board-games which seem to have been born in Egypt and Mesopotamia, were transmitted by the Hellenistic culture and are closely connected with a signicant role played by ancient Gnosis in Iran.

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