Chess: Chaturang to Shataranj
This game was invented by ancient Indians. They called it Chaturang, चतुरंग as it employed 4-tire army formation.
it is an irony that in India, they have forgotten its original name and know it by its Arabic-Persian word, 'Shataranj' शतरंज. A patriotic Indian would get a sense of shame, having forgotten own heritage and parroting alien name for own creation.
It was not a fault of Arabs, who began calling चतुरंग as शतरंज. Their
language does not allow certain pronunciations. Although it is essentially an
Indian game, presumably, due to prolonged Islamic rule over India, we began to
imitate rulers of the day and followed their Arabic word for denoting our game.
Can we restore original name? At least, to begin with can we change names of
Chess Associations as Chaturang Association and gradually, build a grand
narrative of History of Chaturang?
{For
those who know Arabic language, know that Arabic language has certain
limitations and pronunciation norms that compel Arabic speakers to use their
alphabet ش (Sh)
wherever च (Ch)
exists. And pronounce ج (J)
at some places where ग (G) exists. Even if you are not an Arabic expert, you
can easily verify this using www.translate.google.com ; there, whether you input ‘Shataranj’ or ‘Chaturang’,
it would auto-fill as ‘شطرنج ‘(check its audio and you will hear ‘Shataranj’). Arabic
speakers pronounce Chocolate as Shokolate and Gabriel as Jibreel, Chai as Shaai
and Gamal as Jamal. Arabic script does not have alphabet corresponding to many
pronunciations, such as Ch, Pa, etc. and although Arabic script has ع(G), its
pronunciation tends to be ج(J) in
many Arab countries}.
It is no different from an
Indian calling his river Ganga as Ganges, city of Khambhat as Cambay, city of
Vadodara as Baroda etc. because recent colonial royals called them so. Again,
it was perhaps no fault of colonial powers that they could not pronounce Indian names. However, we woke up to the self-negating colonial tradition and restored original names. In the same spirit, patriots should try to revert shataranj/chess to chaturang and build its grand narrative making Indians proud of their stuff.
I know that recently, especially in Gujarat, they have started big-time promotion of this game by roping in Vishwanath Anand. It is a step in right direction and needs to be supplemented.
Perhaps we cannot make abrupt change in the name due to
natural resistance from society and its backlash, hence what we can do easily
is rename our Chess associations as “Chaturang’ Associations. And then
gradually make other changes. At a later stages, we can indigenize appearance
and names of pieces.
