Invention Of Chess
There is a very interesting story behind the invention of chess:
Once upon a time, in northern India, there was a tyrannical Indian king, Shahram! Shahram was fond of playing new games. He used to spend most of his free time engaging in playing interesting games. But,
Very soon, he realized that he had started getting bored playing the same games every day. So, he tried all the games that were present at that time.
But, he didn’t find any game interesting enough to play for long.
So, he ordered his ministry to find him a new game which should be highly challenging, interesting and rewarding that nobody can’t get enough out of it!
A public announcement was made & soon many games were presented in front of the King. It took several weeks and a lot of rejections, until one day a wise mathematician
finally presented Chaturaṅga in front of the King.
The wise man explained to his king – “The game of chaturaṅga is the battle between 2 armies, each lead by a King who commands their army to defeat the other king”
He further explained, “The Game of Chaturaṅga represents the battle between 2 kingdoms consisting the King, Queen and 4 branches of the army – Rook, Knight, Bishop, and pawns. AND, just like real life, the KING alone can’t win the battle all by himself.”
The king loved the game very much. He also realized that his queen, army & people are equally important to rule the kingdom safely and happily!
Shahram got too impressed and offered the mathematician, all the gold and silver he wanted, from the treasure! But, the wise mathematician surprisingly refused the offer, and said –
“I certainly do not want anything from your treasure. I am a small man, if you can please give me a grain of wheat on the first square of the Ashtapada (now, chessboard) and then double it off on the second square and double the grains on second to third and so on up to the 64th square.”
Total grains of wheat on the first square = 1
On second square = 2
On the third square = 4
And so, on….
At first, The King felt highly offended by this act but then he ordered his servants to fulfil the wise man’s wish. The servants started doing calculations…
Later the servants came in and conveyed that such an enormous amount of wheat didn’t exist!
As shocking as it may sound, here are the numbers:
Total Grains of wheat on the 64th square = 9,223,372,036,854,775,808
The whole chessboard contains = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615
The tyrannical king, Shahram laughed and appreciated the wise mathematician again to taught him another great lesson –
“Just like the pawns in chess, you should never underestimate the small things in life”
From here, the journey of chess started!
