Indian chess is the name given to regional variations of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

played in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is distinct from

chaturanga Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chinese), ...

. There are several such

variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals ...

, all quite similar to modern rules, with variants regarding

castling Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously moved ...

pawn promotion In chess, promotion is the replacement of a pawn with a new piece when the pawn is moved to its last . The player replaces the pawn immediately with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same . The new piece does not have to be a previously ca ...

, etc. These variants were popular in India until the 1960s. However, even today a mix of Indian and international rules and terminology are used in some parts of India.

Differences from Western chess

* King cannot move unless a check is given at least once. * When only the king and pawns are left in play, the opponent may not give check, but they can win by stalemate, variants of this include the check being allowed but the capture of the last pawn (which would result in a draw) being disallowed. * The two-step initial pawn move is absent in Indian chess; thus, ''

en passant ''En passant'' (, "in passing") is a method of capturing in chess that occurs when a pawn captures a horizontally adjacent enemy pawn that has just made an initial two-square advance. The capturing pawn moves to the square that the enemy paw ...

'' is also absent. * Normal castling with rook and king is absent. The king can make a knight's move once in a game, known as ''Indian castling''. * On reaching the opposite end of the board, pawns promote to the piece of that square. If it promotes at the initial king's position, it promotes a

queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

. * The last piece remaining may not be captured, variants include the capture being allowed if the last piece is not a pawn.

Names of the pieces

The following table describes one version of Subcontinental chess terminology for the various pieces (including Hindi and Urdu pronunciations):

Differences from Western chess

Names of the pieces

See also

References

Further reading