Talk:Chess in early literature

Poor or wrong information
I have removed several texts in Chinese or Indian sections whose reference to Chess are mere speculation, often due to a poor translation of modern authors. The rest of the page is very poor too and would deserve a full re-writing. Many important texts are missing for Muslim, Indian, Persian, Chinese or Japanese sources. It has no sense presenting modern European countries as separate entries, especially when a text conserved in one country has been written in an other country. I recommend extreme caution. Sorry to be so harsh.Cazaux 14:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I have restored these texts. The removal seems rather arbitrary. You removed, for example, the reference to Lifetime of Liu Xiang, which had three references, but kept Huan Kwai Lu (Book of Marvels), which has no references. Please give references for why the first is incorrect or unreliable. Instead of removing quotes, it would be better to mark them as speculation and give references explaining why they are speculation. I agree that this page need a lot of work, but lets not remove material without well founded reasons. HermanHiddema 09:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Some more digging on this subject gave me FACTS ON THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE CHESS (XIANGQI 象棋) by Peter Banaschak. Who has this to say about the Lifetime of Liu Xiang quote: A somewhat later reference is found in the Shuo yüan 說宛 ('Collection of explanations', 'Collection of persuasions (shuì yuàn 說苑)', 'Garden of Happiness (yuè yuàn 說苑)') that has been composed in the first century BC. It was presented to the throne in 17 BC by Liu Xiang 劉向 (79-8 BC). Here as well we cannot decide what game the text actually alludes to, as we do not have any extra-textual reference. There remain some doubts about the actual translations of this passage, as an inspection of a larger portion of the text makes other meanings not impossible. The translation given here was chosen as it conveys a hint on chess. …ér chân yú (.) yàn zé dòu Xiàngqì ér wû Zhèng nû (.) 而諂諛(. )燕則鬥象棋而舞鄭女(. ) …and flatter (.) If you have leisure, then fight at Xiangqi or dance with the women from Zheng(.)… This is in fact the passage quoted in the "Hu Yinglin bicong" and "Qianqueju leishu", the date of origin of the "Shuo yuan" thus backing the hypothesis that Xiangqi stems from the period of the contending realms.

What is noteworthy, anyway, is that the combination of the characters Xìang and Qí is quite old. Without difficulty we can trace it back to at least the the late century BC. A still earlier origin is not at all excluded definitely. However, we do not know for sure what kind of game was referred to by this word. It seems not improbable that anyone facing the task to name a new game in later times might have been inspired by these passages.

The author states that "other meanings are not impossible", and "we do not know for sure what kind of game was referred to by this word". So as the jury is still out on this, such a quote certainly deserves mention on wikipedia. HermanHiddema 10:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Peter Banaschak's article is indeed a very good reference, the best available to my opinion upon old xiangqi in China. If you read this paper carefully you will see that it is not possible to say that the Shuo yüan is evoking Chinese chess. There is not enough evidence for that. I regret because I would like this idea (which will revolutionize chess history), alas, it is not enough. The first firmed evidence for Chinese chess is the Niu Sengru's "Book of marvels". It is not a matter of "number of references" (I'm not sure I know what the meaning of that, but for historians it is more the quality than the quantity of references which matters). About India, Subhandu's text is no more accepted as Chess evidence. Wizârišn î chatrang ud nihišm î nêw-ardaxšîr, (about 600-620) is the first firm text dealing with chess. It is Persian, and didn't mention shatranj but chatrang. Chatrang is the Pahlavi (Mid Persian) word, probably deriving from Sanskrit Chaturanga. Shatranj is the Arabic word, deriving from Chatrang. Shatranj word didn't exist in 600. This is an example of why this page is really poor. Cazaux (talk) 18:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)