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Evidence in Late Sasanian
2 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1143
Type Contemporary text
Game Chatrang (Sassanian)
Date 0610-01-01 - 0651-12-31
Rules Name of Chatrang, names of pieces, capturing of pieces.
Content WIZĀRIŠN Ī ČATRANG UD NIHIŠN Ī NĒW-ARDAXŠĪR: “The Explanation of Chess and the Arrangement of Backgammon.” Pahlavi manuscript of late Sasanian date. This tale recounts the meeting of Sasanian king Kosrow I and the probably mythical king of India Dewisharm, who played Chatrang and Nard together. It describes the names for the pieces (shah, farzin, rukh, pil, asp, piyadak). Panaino 2017; Murray 1913: 151–153.
Confidence 100
Social status Royalty
Source Murray, H. J. R. 1913. A History of Chess. London: Oxford University Press.
, Panaino, A. 2017. WIZĀRIŠN Ī ČATRANG UD NIHIŠN Ī NĒW-ARDAXŠĪR. Encyclopaedia Iranica. accessed 03/23/2020.
Id DLP.Evidence.1311
Type Contemporary text
Game Nardshir
Date 0531-01-01 - 0651-12-31
Rules Board with 24 points, board divided into four quadrants. 15 pieces per player. Two players. Two dice. Pieces move in opposite directions from one another. Three pieces start one line six, eight, and twelve; two on lines one, three, and seven. Single pieces are removed from the board and must reenter when an opposing piece lands on the same space.
Content WIZĀRIŠN Ī ČATRANG UD NIHIŠN Ī NĒW-ARDAXŠĪR: “The Explanation of Chess and the Arrangement of Backgammon.” Pahlavi manuscript of late Sasanian date. This tale recounts the meeting of Sasanian king Kosrow I and the probably mythical king of India Dewisharm, who played Chatrang and Nardshir together: "In his turn, according to this story, Wuzurgmihr invented a kind of backgammon, which was named nēw-ardaxšīr (“Noble-[is]-Ardaxšīr”) in the honor of the earliest Sasanian king. He made the board game like Spandarmad, i.e. the earth (20), the 30 counters like 30 nychtemera, 15 white like the day, 15 black like the night (21). The die was made like the revolution of the stars and the turning of the firmament (22). The number “1” on it was just as Ohrmazd is one (23), “2” like the mēnōg (the mental dimension) and the gētīg (the material and living dimension) (24), “3” like Good Thought, Good Speech and Good Deeds (25), “4” like the 4 elements of which humanity is composed and like the four directions of the world (26), “5” like the 5 lights (sun, moon, stars, fire and the lightning which comes from the sky; chap. 27), “6” like the completion of the creation during the 6 gāh (“periods”) of the gāhānbārs (the “year-divisions”; 28). Then, Wuzurgmihr described (29) the arrangement of the nēw-ardaxšīr upon the board, which was like that established by Ohrmazd, in the gētīg existence, while (30) the revolving and turning of the counters (in opposite directions?) according to the die was similar to the peoples, living in the gētīg, who are tied by a bond to the mēnōg and all of them turn and move according to the seven planets and the twelve zodiacal signs... When the counters hit and remove (the opponent’s ones by stacking up) one on the other, it happens just as the people in the gētīg hit one another; and when by one turning of the die the players continuously remove (the opponent’s counters), it will be just as the people who all pass out of the gētīg; when they set the counters up again, it will be in the likeness of the people who will all come again alive at the resurrection of the dead (31)." Panaino 2017.
Confidence 100
Ages Adult
Social status Royalty
Genders Male
Source Panaino, A. 2017. WIZĀRIŠN Ī ČATRANG UD NIHIŠN Ī NĒW-ARDAXŠĪR. Encyclopaedia Iranica. accessed 03/23/2020.
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