caturanga

[Valerie J Roebuck]

I recall reading that, more recently, the British board game "Ludo" was
modelled on Caturanga.  Certainly (from the appearance of the latter in
18-19 century miniatures) they look very similar.  Does anyone know if this
is true?

>>What is the connection between Indian caturanga and chinese chess (xiangqi)?
>>
>
>Chinese chess is said to be one of offspring of Indian chess as well as
>the western chess.
>It is also the case with Korean and Japanese ones, although the way of
>spread is not clear.
>
>The largest Japanese dictionary, "Nihon Kokugo Dai Jiten" (Shougakkan
>1976) explains that
>"xiangqi" is a transliteration of "caturanga". (q.v. "shougi" ---
>"xiangqi" is pronounced as
>"shougi" in Japanese and  the character "jiang", which means a general or
>commander in chief,
>has taken place of "xiang", which means an elephant. By the way "qi" means
>"go", a board game
>of Chinese origin, or something like that. )
>This explanation is based on Kindaichi Kyousuke's "Shougi Meigi Kou" (On
>the name and meaning
>of shougi) published in 1910 (in Japanese).
>
>Prof. Itoh Tomoatu of Sinology at Hokkaido University denies the
>'transliteration' theory on the
>ground of phonetical difference between the two words, and has it that the
>name "xiangqi" derives
>from the pieces of  'elephant (xiang)' in the game. See Itoh Tomoatu,
>'Shougi Tangen' (The
>Tracing of Origin of Japanese Chess), "Shougi Journal", 1984 (in Japanese).
>
>----
>Nozawa Masanobu
>E-mail: nozawa at la.numazu-ct.ac.jp


Dr Valerie J Roebuck
Manchester UK