The Mahabharata: Origins of Chess

This is a Giant Chess Board found in India. Locals believe it was used by Bheema and his son Ghatotkacha used to practice chess.

Chess is an ancient game. There is early archeological evidence that the game was played going very far back in Ancient India. The game, or battle, Chaturanga appears in the Mahabharata, an ancient epic poem of the Kurukshetra war. This war took only eighteen days, and was between two cousin families over who was the rightful ruler of the kingdom of Bharata. The two families, the five sons of Pandu and the one hundred sons of the blind king Dhritarashtra, fought with cunning and treachery, the morality of which bothered a key character, Yudhishthira. The Baghavad Gita includes the spiritual explanation of why sometimes violence, treachery and war is necessary. What a great game chess is, where the violence and treachery is confined to the board.

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