The ancient Indian Brahmin mathematician Sissa (also spelt Sessa or Sassa and also known as Sissa ibn Dahir or Lahur Sessa) is a mythical character from India, known for the invention of Chaturanga, the Indian predecessor of chess, and the wheat and chessboard problem he would have presented to the king when he was asked what reward he'd like for that invention. [1]
Sissa, a Hindu Brahmin (in some legends from the village of Lahur), invents chess for an Indian king (named as Balhait, Shahram or Ladava in different legends, with "Taligana" sometimes named as the supposed kingdom he ruled in northern India) for educational purposes. [2] In gratitude, the King asks Sissa how he wants to be rewarded. Sissa wishes to receive an amount of grain which is the sum of one grain on the first square of the chess board, and which is then doubled on every following square. [3]
This request is now known as the wheat and chessboard problem, and forms the basis of various mathematical and philosophical questions.
Until the nineteenth century, the legend of Sissa was one of several theories about the origin of chess. Today it is mainly regarded as a myth because there is no clear picture of the origin of chaturanga (an ancient Indian chess game), and from which modern chess has developed.
The context of the mythical Sissa is described in detail in A History of Chess . There are many variations and inconsistencies, and therefore little can be confirmed historically. Nevertheless, the legend of Sissa is placed by most sources in a Hindu kingdom between 400 and 600 AD, in an era after the invasion of Alexander the Great. The myth is often told from a Persian and Islamic perspective. [4]
However, the oldest known narrative believed to have been the basis for the legend of Sissa is from before the advent of Islam. It tells of Husiya, daughter of Balhait, a queen whose son is killed by a rebel, but of whom she does not initially hear the news. This news is subtly announced to her through the chess game that Sissa introduced to her. [5]
This article has been created by partial adoption from and translation of the Dutch Wikipedia Sissa (Mythische Brahmaan).
Parashurama, also referred to as Rama Jamadagnya, Rama Bhargava and Veerarama, is the sixth avatar among the Dashavatara of the preserver god Vishnu in Hinduism. He is believed to be one of the Chiranjeevis (Immortals), who will appear at the end of the Kali Yuga to be the guru of Vishnu's tenth and last incarnation, Kalki.
A chessboard is a gameboard used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During play, the board is oriented such that each player's near-right corner square is a light square.
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, represented by a horse's head and neck. It moves two squares vertically and one square horizontally, or two squares horizontally and one square vertically, jumping over other pieces. Each player starts the game with two knights on the b- and g-files, each located between a rook and a bishop.
A chess puzzle is a puzzle in which knowledge of the pieces and rules of chess is used to solve logically a chess-related problem. The history of chess puzzles reaches back to the Middle Ages and has evolved since then.
Shatranj is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as it was introduced to Europe by contacts in Muslim Al-Andalus and in Sicily in the 10th century.
Chaturanga is an ancient Indian strategy board game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess, xiangqi (Chinese), janggi (Korean), shogi (Japanese), sittuyin (Burmese), makruk (Thai), ouk chatrang (Cambodian) and modern Indian chess.
Tamerlane chess is a medieval chess variant. Like modern chess, it is derived from shatranj. It was developed in Central Asia during the reign of Emperor Timur, and its invention is also attributed to him. Because Tamerlane chess is a larger variant of chaturanga, it is also called Shatranj Al-Kabir, as opposed to Shatranj as-saghir. Although the game is similar to modern chess, it is distinctive in that there are varieties of pawn, each of which promotes in its own way.
The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1,500 years to its earliest known predecessor, called chaturanga, in India; its prehistory is the subject of speculation. From India it spread to Persia, where it was modified in terms of shapes and rules and developed into Shatranj. Following the Arab invasion and conquest of Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Europe via Spain and Italy. The game evolved roughly into its current form by about 1500 CE.
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The wheat and chessboard problem is a mathematical problem expressed in textual form as:
If a chessboard were to have wheat placed upon each square such that one grain were placed on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on, how many grains of wheat would be on the chessboard at the finish?
Indian chess is the name given to regional variations of chess played in India in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is distinct from chaturanga. There are several such variations, all quite similar to modern rules, with variants regarding castling, pawn promotion, etc. These variants were popular in India until the 1960s. However, even today a mix of Indian and international rules and terminology are used in some parts of India.
Maldivian mythology or Maldivian folklore is the body of myths, tales and anecdotes belonging to the oral tradition of Maldivians. Even though some of the Maldivian myths were already mentioned briefly by British commissioner in Ceylon HCP Bell towards the end of the 19th century, their study and publication were carried out only quite recently by Spanish writer and artist Xavier Romero-Frias, at a time when that ancestral worldview was quickly disappearing.
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Ambalappuzha Sree Krishna Swamy Temple is an Indian Hindu temple dedicated to Krishna at Ambalappuzha in Alappuzha district of Kerala. The temple is believed to have been built during 15th century AD by the local ruler Chembakasserry Pooradam Thirunal-Devanarayanan Thampuran. It is one of the seven greatest temples in Travancore. It is considered one among the 108 Abhimana Kshethram of Vaishnavate tradition.
A mathematical chess problem is a mathematical problem which is formulated using a chessboard and chess pieces. These problems belong to recreational mathematics. The most well-known problems of this kind are the eight queens puzzle and the knight's tour problem, which have connection to graph theory and combinatorics. Many famous mathematicians studied mathematical chess problems, such as, Thabit, Euler, Legendre and Gauss. Besides finding a solution to a particular problem, mathematicians are usually interested in counting the total number of possible solutions, finding solutions with certain properties, as well as generalization of the problems to N×N or M×N boards.
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The mythology of Indonesia is very diverse, the Indonesian people consisting of hundreds of ethnic groups, each with their own myths and legends that explain the origin of their people, the tales of their ancestors and the demons or deities in their belief systems. The tendency to syncretize by overlying older traditions with newer foreign ideas has occurred. For example, the older ancestral mythology might be merged with foreign mythology, such as Hindu, Islam, or Christian biblical mythology.
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