The Evolution of Chess

We know that chess existed in India at the beginning of the 7th century, and we have evidence that a form of chess existed in central Asia in the 1st century . Some people claim that tht game might date back as far as the 15th century B.C.E Nobody knows exactly how old chess is. From India, chess quickly spread to Persia and thence to Arabia, where powerful rulers patronized good players in the same manner that European nobility would later patronize musicians and artists. Chess first came from Europe when the Moors conquered Spain in the 8th century. Within a century or two, chess was being played throughout Europe, Including Russia, spread by either soilders or traders. Whereas the countries of East Asia adapted the rules of the game and the board to local customs, Europe adopted the Muslims form of chess and played it for six centuries without change. Then the game changed dramatically, turning chess from a stodgy game of slow advances into a game of lightning strikes and constant action. 

 In Europe, chess was played mostly by people in religeous orders and royal courts. Not until the 19th century were clubs founded and tournaments organized, thereby giving chess a wider following. Soon there after, a World Champion was crowned, and professional chess players began to appear for the first time. Chess literature began to proliferate as ordinary people came to love this game. Today, chess is played in virtually every country in the world. With tens of thousands of competition and hundreds of magazines, chess is the world's most popular board game and one of the most beloved of all games. 

China called..they want their wall back.

Note that the claim that "chess is the World's most popular board game" only holds any truth if Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) is considered Chess, as Xiangqi has about 10 times as many players as International Chess (i.e. FIDE rules) world wide. Our form of Chess is in fact just a minor variant.

While the game played in India, chataranga, may have similarities to chess, and may indeed be a predecessor, I'd hesitate to call it chess as it was also vastly different. This would be even more so with any earlier games that may have existed (unless we're going to call any game played on a grided board "chess").

not  chataranga, chaturanga

Francesc Vincent is believed to have invented the modern rules of chess with the queen and bishop's new movements.  

Not any game on a grided board is Chess. (Checkers, for instance, is not.) To belong to the family of Chess a board game has to fit the following characteristics:

1) There are many different piece types,each moving in their own way.

2) The pieces capture by replacing the piece in their target square.

3) One of the piece types is designated 'royal', and loss of it decides the game.

Games that do not strictly satisfy those rules can still be considered Chess 'by association', if they very closely resemble a well established game that does fit the criteria. (E.g. Suicide Chess, which uses exactly the same board, pieces and moves as FIDE Chess, but has a different winning condition.)

I agree. As I see it chess can be traced only back to Shatranj as "chess." Before that there were chess-like games and games from which chess probably developed, pre-chess or proto-chess, if you will, unless someone uncovers some game and its rules (we're not ever sure of the rules for Chaturaga) yet unknown.

Well, I have seen the claim that Chaturanga evolved from a 4-player game played with dice, where eachplayer just had a single King, Rook,Elephant and Knight, plus 4 Pawns, setup on the right-hand side of 'his' board edge. The dice determined which of the pieces he was allowed to move when his turn comes up.

Each game of Chaturanga is played by four players

Not according to the description on chessvariants.org, from which I got my information. There Chaturanga is described as a 2-player game very close to Shatranj. The 4-player game is referred to as Chaturaji.

It's confusing. Murray, who was probably right, considered 4-handed Chauranga (sometimes called Chaturaji) a variant of 2-handed Chaturanga.

same