Hi folks,
Can someone put this question to rest once and for all. Some say India, some say Persi, and some say China. Does anyone know? I would appreciate an unbiased answer based on fact and knowledge. I would very surprised if someone knew the answer. Its almost as difficult as answering the question of who actually invented it.
Found this on the net by Imran Ghory......
The early history and origin of chess has been one of the most controversial topics of gaming history ("chronogamology" if you will), where chess came from has been the subject of legends since written records of chess began. While many websites claim that chess was invented at a particular time and place, in reality we know very little about the early days of chess. The earliest "solid" evidence that we have comes from the middle-east where a number of Persian and Arabic manuscripts were written by the end of the 10th century, the exact dating of some of these documents is uncertain with some dating them as early as the 7th century.
One work the middle-Persian Karnamak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Papakan is tentatively dated at 600 CE, but speculative dating has put it as early as 260 CE and as late as 1000 CE. For a long time (1600-1850) before the discovery of the arabic manuscripts it was thought that Chess originated from Persia, however virtually all of the arabic texts claimed that chess arrived from India (via Persia). This was the primary reason that the origin of chess is now stated to be India, in addition to these texts a number of other pieces of evidence were used to support this claim in Harold Murray's "History of Chess" (1913) which after almost 100 years still remains the standard reference work on the history of chess.
However the other evidence is shaky and pre-1000 CE evidence of chess in India is very limited. One piece of evidence normally given is the description of chess in Alberuni's India (1017CE), however this is contentious with Sam Sloan claiming that the chess passage (which relates to a four-player form of chess thought to be unique to India) doesn't exist in the original arabic edition. The passage is in Edward Sachau 1888 translation of the work, but Sachau unfortunately does not reveal the source of his arabic edition.
The most common alternative for the birthplace of chess is given as China, on the basis of Chinese Chess which while significantly different from Chess is clearly related. Claims that chess originated from Chinese Chess are spurious, being illogical and lacking evidence, however claims that Chinese Chess originated from ordinary chess are equally spurious. The most likely explanation of the similarities is that both of the games share a common ancestor, phylogenetic analysis has shown that the ancestor is likely to have been closer to chess than Chinese Chess. Whether this proto-chess originated in China, India or some other country is something we simply don't know and may never do.