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jim oakes wrote on Sat, Sep 6, 2003 08:55 PM UTC:
According to Board and Table games from many civilizations by R.C. Bell
'Shataranga' is played by 4 people with dice - all 4 sides of the board
are played from.  There are no redundant pieces per player. Each player
would have 4 pieces (ship, horse, rajah, elephant) and 4 pawns. This was
an early 'War game' from Indian inwhich the throw of the dice determined
the move of your pieces. The war game involved 4 miniture armies and
gambling was involved. The miniture armies could ally themslves with
another army. 

   'Shaturanga players evaded the gamling laws by discarding the die and
removing the element of luck. Other changed followed. One of the first
appears to have been the amalgamation of the allied forces into a single
army and the game for four players became one for two. This explains the
duplication of the pieces in modern chess... With these changes the ame
ceased to be Shatarunga; it had developed into the early medievl variety
of chess, Shantranj' page 56-57 

Is what is described on the web site as Chataranga  - really Shantranj ??

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