1. You came out of nowhere and say:
"Are you suggesting that the original Indian chaturanga pieces were engraved flat discs?"
Where did I say that? Nowhere.
Indian pieces are not flat disc like Chinese pieces.
"You admit that Chinese "chess" pieces are not copies of Indian pieces"
No, I said Indian pieces are not flat disc like Chinese pieces in response to you coming up with things out of nowhere.
Those are 2 things. A is not a copy of B, and B is not a copy of A are 2 different thing. One is the original and one is the copy.
Chinese Chess pieces are copies of Indian pieces. Not a copy in 3 dimension form, but copy in name and movement.
Where did i say Uzbekistan?
Why is it inconceivable that other cultures carved pieces to their own tastes?
They can and they do. As I said It's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the Bruce Lee chess set. It's cannons in the Civil War Chess Set. And obviously a "castle" in the Staunton design.
I am interested in the original Indian game.
You don't have to be an Islamic country to follow a tradition. Europe is introduced to chess through simple geometric figure chessmen. That's when they picked up the baton. They went back to their "graven images" traditions in sets such as the Charlemagne Set, but eventually settled on the Staunton Set swinging back closer to the Shatranj simple geometric set.
2. Copies can have mutations (changes). Yes, Russian chess set is a copy of of a copy of a copy, going back to the original.
@Batgirl and @Ziryab said that ancient Indian sets were boats. @Ziryab put put up that picture. I will hold the possibility that modern set is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the original boat. But the odds are stacked against boat.
3. LeviAJones wrote:
from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit roth, meaning "chariot"
Rook came from rokh.
4. There is no such thing as indisputable truth in history. You can dispute anything in your own mind. There is such a thing as "preponderance of evidence" in court of law. It is a legal concept.
How much do I owe Star Trek? When will my debt be paid?
Just a few points:
You want us to believe that you can tell us what the original Indian chaturanga pieces looked like by citing the evidence of Chinese pieces that look nothing like what you say the Indian pieces must have been, or that the Persian-style pieces (the oldest of which was found in Uzbekistan) must have been faithful copies of the Indian. I remain unconvinced.
The Russian word for the rook is the same as the Russian word for boat and sounds nothing like the Persian/Sanskrit word.
You have as yet provided no link between the Sanskrit and Persian words and the modern English word.
When you provide NO evidence for some of your claims, how can that amount to "a preponderance"?
The Russian word
Слон [Cyrillic] means Bishop. But it actually means Elephant.
Hmm. I'm confused. What does it mean?
If it means elephant, why isn't an elephant on a Russian chess board?