A shared inheritance
“Chess is one of the highest expressions of human ingenuity”
Throughout history, few games have achieved what chess has: becoming a mirror of thought, an instrument of contemplation, and a bridge between civilisations. Considered one of the noblest manifestations of human creativity, its origins are interwoven with the mysteries of time and the pathways of knowledge. The earliest forms of the game, such as the Indian chaturanga and the Chinese xiangqi, were born not merely as representations of war, but as syntheses of strategic thought, practical philosophy and cosmology.
It was no accident that chess spread across vast territories. Its millennial journey found its most fertile stage along the Silk Road. That network of routes connecting Asia with Europe was far more than a channel of trade: it was an artery of wisdom, a thoroughfare of dialogue between worlds.
The term Silk Road was first defined in Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen’s work Old and New Approaches to the Silk Road (1887). Richthofen, a distinguished German geographer, determined that it was the Pazyryk tribe of Siberia and the Scythian peoples of Mongolia who first initiated that route.
Yet, since this route was traversed primarily for commercial purposes, the concept of the Silk Road is better understood as a commercial network rather than a mere line of communication.
Meanwhile, silk itself was weaving other kinds of stories. Spun from the delicate threads of the Bombyx mori, it captivated emperors, merchants and clerics alike. Its softness, colours and exclusivity made it a symbol of prestige. Yet beyond ostentation and luxury, it was above all a matter of status, for few could aspire to such rarities.
Indeed, from the 1st century BCE, the Silk Road became an intricate web of trading routes, its operational centre located in the Chinese city of Chang’an, largely revolving around the silk trade. This network extended to regions we now know as Mongolia, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Somalia and other Near Eastern territories.
Along it flowed not only silks, spices, and precious metals, but also ideas, tales, religions and games. Chess was among the most privileged travellers of this journey, and in every stop, in every civilisation that embraced it, it left its mark while absorbing new ways of being played and conceived. Chess travelled not as a mere pastime, but as an intangible treasure laden with values, metaphors, and worldviews.
In Persia it became shatranj, infused with a strong literary and philosophical dimension. In the courts of Baghdad and Córdoba it was welcomed as an object of erudition, producing treatises that transcended the playful to enter scientific debate. Within the Islamic world flourished schools that examined the game with mathematical precision, where the first blindfold games appeared, alongside chess notation and the concept of checkmate (shah mat).
By the 11th century, the game crossed the Pyrenees into continental Europe. There it gradually adopted the rules we recognise today, without ever losing its reflective spirit or profound symbolism. Simultaneously, it spread eastwards to the Far East, transforming into xiangqi in China and shogi in Japan, which proves its remarkable cultural adaptability.
The Colombian philosopher Hernández Acuña emphasises that chess is not merely a game, but a cultural lens. Each generation, each country, each historical moment has translated chess into its own idiom. Its games reflect not only individual styles, but also the temperaments of an age, visions of the world, and ways of conceiving power and resistance.
Faced with such symbolic richness, it is unsurprising that multiple hypotheses contend for the honour of its origin: from India to China, from Persia to Egypt, and even Ireland, where druidic legends attribute its invention to the god Lugh. Though divergent in foundation, all these accounts converge upon an essential truth: chess is a part of humanity’s shared inheritance. In each version, the game takes on new forms, yet its essence endures.
And as Jorge Luis Borges once reminded us:
It was in the East this war took fire.
Today the whole earth is its theater.
Like the game of love, this game goes on forever.
Translation by Alastair Reid
The heritage of chess, handed down from generation to generation, lives today upon millions of boards. The millennial journey of chess along the Silk Road became a voyage of ingenuity, culture and memory. If its long journey imparts any lesson, it is that within every move lies not merely a strategy, but a gesture of remembrance, of humanity, and of living philosophy.
References
- Averbakh, Y. (2012). A History of Chess: From Chaturanga to the Present Day. Russell Enterprises.
- Cazaux, J.-L., & Knowlton, R. (2017). A World of Chess: Its Development and Variations through Centuries and Civilizations. McFarland & Company.
- Golombek, H. (1976). A History of Chess. Batsford.
- Hernández Acuña, Diana (2014). El ajedrez visto desde las pasiones que pueden surgir en el juego. Tesis doctoral en Filosofía. Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga.
- Josten, G. (2003). The Origin of Chess and the Silk Road.
- Li, D. H. (1998). The Genealogy of Chess. Premier Publishing.
- Martínez Estrada, Ezequiel (2008). Filosofía del Ajedrez. Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Nacional.
- Murray, H. J. R. (1913). A History of Chess. Oxford University Press.
