Thousands of years ago, power was gained mostly through physical violence and maintained with brute strength. Maharajahs, kings and emperors had no use for subtlety.
Women, unsurprisingly, suffered under this scheme of things. They had no way to compete. Yet there were some, perhaps, whose hunger for power was obsessive and insatiable, invented a way of influencing the dynamic and creating an effective form of power. There was Bathsheba from the Old Testament, Helen of Troy and Cleopatra.
Over time, a court gradually formed itself around the person in power – king, queen, emperor, leader. The courtiers who filled the court, preferred diplomacy to methods which were commonly practised at the time.
A story is told that around 600 AD, or perhaps some time before that, a maharajah at court instructed his courtiers to invent a game for him that would capture his imagination and eradicate boredom from the palace. Chess was invented and remains one of the finest achievements of the human mind.
The origins of chess are obscure, but it is believed to have originated in northern India. The first mention of chess is found in a Persian (Iranian) poem which states the game was first played in India. The game is old, very old, and its practice retreats perhaps back to prehistory. In ancient tombs pieces are found which archaeologists assure us constituted a form of chess. In Forbes’s History of Chess, 1860, we are told the game was invented between four and five thousand years ago by the wife of King Rawana of Ceylon, when the capital was besieged by Rama. Originally, chess was a game of war.
Did a woman or group of women invent chess? Why is the queen the most powerful piece on the chess board, surpassing the might of the King, the Bishop who represents the power of the church, the Rook or Castle which provides a safe haven for a retreating army or the galloping Knight? It is common knowledge that if you, the player, lose your Queen on the chess board, you lose the game.
Was chess devised as a weapon to grasp power? Was it used in the scheming world of the old aristocratic court to gain power? It is unlikely that we will ever know. But the feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us. So it must have been unbearable to the women of ancient times.
No one wants less power. Everyone wants more. In our world today, it is dangerous to seem too power hungry, to be overt with our power moves. We have to seem fair and decent. We need to be subtle – congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious. And this is what chess is all about.
It is a game of constant duplicity. We have to outmanoeuvre our opponents and outwit them, all the while behaving like gentlemen who are harmless. Chess, in my view, resembles the scheming world of the old and current courts.
Courtiers have to serve their masters, but if they seem to fawn, if they curry favour too obviously, the other courtiers around them would notice and would act against them. Attempts to win the master’s favour, then, have to be subtle. And even skilled courtiers capable of such subtlety have to protect themselves from their fellow courtiers, who at all moments are scheming to push them aside.
In a chess tournament we prepare for our opponents in the same way as courtiers would study their colleagues. We know their strengths and weaknesses. We study their games and prepare our games to refute their style of play.
The court is supposed to represent the height of civilization and refinement. People look upon it as such. Arrogance and aggressive behaviour can well hasten the downfall of the court. Similarly in chess, aggressive and violent moves are not recommended. Like courtiers, chess players work silently and secretly against their opponents and friends while appearing the very paragon of elegance; they have to outwit and thwart their opponents in the subtlest of ways. And like the successful courtier, the chess player has learned over time to make all of his moves indirect.
If the malevolent courtier has to stab an opponent in the back, he does so with a velvet glove on his hand and the sweetest of smiles on his face. Instead of using coercion or outright treachery, the perfect courtier of ancient times got his way through seduction, charm, deception, and subtle strategy, always planning several moves ahead. Life in the ancient court was a never-ending game that required constant vigilance and tactical thinking. Like chess, it was a game of civilized war.
The story of chess is one of the most extraordinary inventions in our history. It draws extensively on legend, mythology and symbolism and must rank among the greatest stories ever told.
