The Chessboard (Ashtapada) Carpet (detail)

Ashtāpada ( sa, अष्टापद) or Ashtapadi is an Indian

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

which predates

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

and was mentioned on the list of games that Gautama Buddha would not play.

Chaturanga Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chinese), ...

, which could be played on the same , appeared sometime around the 6th century in India; it could be played by two to four participants. Variants played on different boards include ''Daśapada'' ( sa, दशपद). and, in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

, ''Chomal Ishto'' or ''Chomal Eshto''. Similar traditional games can be found in China and Korea.

Etymology

The word ''Ashtāada'' is a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

term describing the 8×8 board that the game is played on. This meaning was first recorded by

Patanjali Patanjali ( sa, पतञ्जलि, Patañjali), also called Gonardiya or Gonikaputra, was a Hindu author, mystic and philosopher. Very little is known about him, and while no one knows exactly when he lived; from analysis of his works it i ...

in a Mahābhāshya book written in the 2nd century. The game was even condemned in an early Brahman text, the Sutrakrilānga.

Rules

Like a

chessboard A chessboard is a used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During play, the bo ...

, the ''Ashtāpada'' board is divided into an 8×8 grid of squares, although they are all the same color. The board has special markings known as "castles", where pieces are safe from being captured or removed from play. Each player receives an even number of pieces to play the game. The goal is to move a piece around the board

clockwise Two-dimensional rotation can occur in two possible directions. Clockwise motion (abbreviated CW) proceeds in the same direction as a clock's hands: from the top to the right, then down and then to the left, and back up to the top. The opposite ...

, entering the castle, and to regain his castle back in a counterclockwise direction so as to make it reach the center.

Variants

A variant played on a larger 10×10 board is known as ''Daśapada'' ( sa, दशपद). A variant played on smaller 5×5 board is known as ''Chomal Ishto'' or ''Chomal Eshto'' in

. Each player has four pieces to play and retrieve after reaching the center. The game is generally played with

cowrie shells Cowrie or cowry () is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. The term ''porcelain'' derives from the old Italian term for the cowrie shell (''porcellana'') du ...

instead of dice. It is similar to

Chowka bhara Chowka Bara or Ashta Chamma is a two- or four-player board game from India. This game is an example of a “fully observable” system that has an element of chance introduced by the roll of special dice and an element of strategy (the strategy ...

. In Korea, the board of the traditional game 용호쌍륙 ( ko, 용호쌍륙) is similar to Ashtapada.

References

{{reflist Indian board games Race games Traditional board games

Etymology

Rules

Variants

See also

References