According to the Shahnama (Book of Kings) by Firdawsi (d. 1020) chess’ arrival to Iran accompanied a tale of political intrigue and competition. In a vain bid to avoid paying tribute to the Sasanian shah Anushirwan, the rajah of India dispatched an envoy with a strange new game to decode: chess. The rajah wagered that he would pay his tribute only if the Iranians could figure out the rules of their game. The Iranian vizier Buzurghmihr soon realized the relation of the pieces to warfare, thus beating the envoy at his own game. The central scene here depicts Buzurghmihr showing chess to his shah in a leisurely gathering accompanied by wine and attendants. Though referencing a tale set in Iran, the scene evokes an Ottoman palace complete with Bursa-style arches with a characteristic notch at the top center; it was not uncommon to merge past and present in Ottoman painting to reflect a manuscript’s audience. Beside the chessboard is a second game that closely resembles pachisi (chaupat), or one of its variants. Two side panels flank the scene, extending the palatial setting with a garden (left) and domed doorway with an attendant (right) holding his head in his hand. The folio’s verse quotes the end of the rajah’s challenge to reverse the tribute as he boasts of the superiority of knowledge over all renowned things.

This painting forms part of a larger group of four folios at LACMA that likely once resided in the same album. Though the paintings appear to have once belonged to an earlier literary manuscript, the current folio and another featuring Rustam (M.73.5.428), bear the clearest relationship to tales from the Shahnama. In Firdawsi’s text, upon winning at chess the Iranian vizier invents the game of backgammon (nard) as a reciprocal test for the Indian emissary. Thus, the tale pairs two drastically divergent games in concept: chance (backgammon) versus logic (chess). Yet this Ottoman painting offers a scene with an alternative pair of games. While chess still takes a central role, the game beside it is not the Iranian invention of backgammon, but an older Indian creation called pachisi or chaupat. In this racing game, throws of the dice determine the movements of pawns around a cruciform board, like the one depicted. Much like the earlier circulation of chess and backgammon, pachisi also spread westward into the Ottoman empire, eventually reaching Europe during the nineteenth century. The journey spawned numerous variations of the game, including its somewhat simplified version known as Ludo.

In their own leisurely pursuits, Ottomans readily embraced these imported games among other forms of gambling to the point that critical jurists repeatedly attempted to quash such activities in public spaces, like coffeehouses, throughout the early modern period. Despite these efforts, gaming--especially chess and backgammon--continued to entertain ardent enthusiasts over the centuries. Though modern-day chess has transformed in rules and piece names thanks to players in the Islamic world and beyond, the game still bears the imprint of its early Iranian reception: the Persian phrase “shah mat” (“the king is at a loss”) became the winning declaration of “checkmate.” While sometimes translated as “the king died,” the king does not die in chess, rather, in checkmate the king is pressed into a position he cannot escape.