Who invented chess?

Chess was invented by the Queen of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), besieged by God Rama. While this sounds a bit mythical, chess’s more credible historical origins in India can be traced back to much later.
Early forms of chess originated in India around the 6th century AD in the Gupta Empire. Its ancestor, “Chaturanga,” a Sanskrit name for a type of battle formation, found its mention in Mahabharatha.

Chaturanga was a popular four-player war game that had several critical aspects of modern chess.

There are several similarities between this old game and modern-day chess. Like there are different pieces in both games, and they have different powers. Also, victory was based on only one piece, aka the king in modern chess.
By 7th century, Chaturanga (the word is based on the four commanding wings of an army), the earliest known precursor of modern chess, was flourishing in northwestern India. Travelers, saints, artists, and kings took some version of Chaturanga to Persia on the Silk Road, where the name of the “King” in Sanskrit, “Rajah,” changed to Persian “Shah”.

All the European names of the game have roots in the Persian language. French “Echec,” English Checkmate all originated thanks to their Persian roots. At the same time, Buddhist pilgrims are known to carry it towards the East. Where several versions of the games (inscribed discs placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.

By the 11th century, it reached Japan and Korea, the popular version of the Eastern Game known as Chinese Chess with 9 files and 10 ranks and a river acting as a boundary between the 5th and 6th ranks-limiting access the enemy camp and also makes the game slower than its Western cousin.
In conclusion, Chaturanga played with dice on a 64-square board gradually transformed into shatranj (or chatrang). This two-player game became popular in northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and southern parts of Central Asia after 600 CE. Thanks for reading! make sure to follow JoeCoop100 for more!