Chess History and ReminiscencesBird, H. E. (Henry Edward)
History
Chess History and Reminiscences
Bird, H. E. (Henry Edward)
Chess
The other version of the first receipt of chess in Persia, based
upon eastern works and perhaps more reasonable, if not resting
upon yet better attestation, records that Burzuvia, a physician,
and the most expert that could be found in the knowledge of
languages, and art and ability in acquiring them, at the request
or command of Chosroes, King of Persia, undertook to explore the
national work of the Brahmans and the famous book, the Kurtuk
Dunmix, and the result of his mission and labours were, after
considerable research in India, the materials for and production
of the Culila Dinma, a national work greatly treasured by Chosroes
and future kings of Persia, and which work contained the art of
playing chess. This work is said to have been jointly translated
by Burzuvia and Buzerjmihr the vizier of Chosroes and it is highly
probable that the latter did assist, and thus learnt the secret, and
this seems to form the most likely solution of the circumstance of
his unraveling the mysteries of chess as alleged, without the
slightest clue, to the amazement and delight of Chosroes and his
court, when it was received as a test of wisdom and profound
secret from the King of Hind. Writers who concur in or do not
dissent from either of these accounts, yet differ as to which should
take priority in point of date, the more reasonable supposition
seems to be, that Burzuvia not unwilling to propitiate Chosroes'
favourite vizier and Counsellor, reserved his knowledge from all but
Buzerjmihr in which no doubt he exercised wise policy and did
not himself go unrewarded. The chief Counsellor and vizier of a
great King was a desirable person to conciliate in those days, and
afterwards as is abundantly proved throughout Eastern history
and dynastics from the time of Abu Bekr, Omar, Osman, Abdullah,
and the Prophet, and later from Harun, and Al Mamun (786-833)
even to the time of the enlightened Akbar, (1556-1605), continued
examples are to be found in the reigns of the rulers through all
these ages where the real sway vested in the vizier who frequently
combined a great knowledge of learning with an extraordinary
capacity for war.
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THE TEN ADVANTAGES OF CHESS ACCORDING TO THE PERSIAN
PHILOSOPHER, ARE THUS GIVEN IN TRANSLATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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