Chaturaji

Chaturaji (meaning "four kings", and also known as choupat, IAST Caupāṭ, IPA: [tʃɔːˈpaːʈ]) is a four-player chess-like game. It was first described in detail c. 1030 by Al-Biruni in his book India. Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice. A diceless variant of the game was still played in India at the close of the 19th century.

The ancient Indian epic Mahabharata contains a reference to a game, which could be chaturaji:

Presenting myself as a Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue, by throws of black and red dice. I shall entertain the king with his courtiers and friends.

There is no certainty, however, whether the mentioned game is really a chess-like game like chaturaji, or a race game like Pachisi.

At the end of the 18th century, Hiram Cox put forth a theory (later known as the Cox–Forbes theory) that chaturaji is a predecessor of chaturanga and hence the ancestor of modern chess. The theory was developed by Duncan Forbes in the late 19th century, and was endorsed in an even stronger version by Stewart Culin. This theory was rejected by H. J. R. Murray in 1913, however, and modern scholars have sided with Murray. According to Forbes, this game is properly called chaturanga, which is also the name of a two-player game. The term chaturaji refers to a position in the game comparable to checkmate in chess. Forbes believed that the North and South players (Black and Green) played as allies against the East and West players (Red and Yellow).

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