Wednesday, April 06, 2011

King Ravana, Chess and Lanka


Every once in a while we here a nice story/theory about how advance the great king Ravana was in his day and a new addition or two to the list of high tech gadgets he allegedly possessed. Air crafts, space crafts, nuclear weapons etc were never in short supply for him. (Yet he somehow managed to loose the war to a army of apes, but that's a different discussion altogether). It doesn't end there either... theories/stories expand further into describe how Ravana had links with Aliens, and how the mythical lost civilization of Atlantis was a part of Lanka once etc...

Therefore, I really didn't take it seriously when I saw a piece of news on the net claiming King Ravana has invented Chess. "Ah.. one of those Ravana stories again... must be coming from either Dr Sooriya Gunaseka, Arisen Ahubudu or Jackson Anthony" I thought. A humble person like me would normally require little bit more hard evidence to believe in simple stories like nuclear wars in 3000 or so years ago etc. (With all the respect for above knowledgeable individuals and while admiring and appreciating their creativity and imagination).

Just as I was going to pass the news item... something else caught my eye. The author (or at least the person from whom the claim is coming from) was not one from Sri Lanka! In fact, it was non-other than the current world chess champion! yes, well loved and respected Viswanathan Anand himself!

I know you may be checking the date of publication of this article now and making sure it is not April first. Yes, it is not April 1st alright! Here are few links on the story.

ndtv, The Indian, chess.com, chessBase, Susan Polgar's Blog

All these sites confirm above mentioned essay of Anand's to Time Magazine (I couldn't find the original essay itself, if someone find the link, please submit in comments) and the excerpts they present are all alike. So I deduce that Anand has indeed made the comment. Here are few key comments :

"It would take me 17 years to find that route, and along the way I've had hundreds of conversations about the origins of chess - with players, fans, officials, taxi drivers, barbers and who knows how many people who sat next to me on a plane. I've heard the ownership of chess being claimed by Russians, Chinese, Ukrainians, Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Spaniards and Greeks. My own view is that the sport belongs to everybody who plays it, but the question of its origins is easy enough to answer: chess comes from India."

Anand goes on to supplement his argument by delving into history. He says: "Our claim is based not on dominance - although the Indian school is now producing lots of high-quality players, including (ahem) the world No. 1. Some of the oldest references to the sport are found in ancient Indian texts. In the great epic Ramayana (which, according to some sources, was orally transmitted sometime between 750 B.C. and 500 B.C.), the demon king Ravana invents chess to amuse his wife Mandodari. A brilliant mind, she promptly beats him at it. My grandmother told me that story when I first began to play the game at age 6. "

Wait! isn't there something very wrong here? "chess comes from India" since it was invented by Ravana ?

Unlike nuclear weapons and space crafts, chess is something we certainly know as something which was invented long ago and there is no particular reason why it shouldn't be in King Ravana's day... Problem is Ravana is made to look like an Indian King in those paragraphs !!

Indians are well known for their reverence for king Rama and Hanuman, for them, they are Gods while Ravana is a daemon king at best. A daemon king from Lanka whom King/God Rama justifiably and gloriously beat in the war. Normally, in Hindu mythology (some may say it is history, not mythology. I don't want to argue on that here, let it be history/mythology whatever!) very little (or none at all!) respect is given to king Ravana. After all, he is the villain in the story!

Here however, we see they give the credit to Ravana (his wife Mandodari or the sister Surphanaka to be precise) for inventing chess but in all those articles the origin of Ravana himself is portrayed as in India! In no where it is mentioned about where Ravana's kingdom was, even though all present Indians and mythologists firmly believe Ravana was in Lanka and Rama's army had to cross Falk Straight to get at Ravana etc. The fact that Ravana was a Lankan king was hidden in this case.

One can't help get the feeling that Ravana is a daemon king from Lanka in all other times but except in certain times where he can be useful, at those times he is silently and conveniently being passed as a Indian king so his inventions also belongs there!

Personally, I really don't care much whether the credit for origination of Chess goes to India or Lanka, to me what matter most is how do we fare in chess at present. We are doing very poorly in chess compared to India, in that light it may seem ludicrous if Lanka too stage a claim to the origin of chess. (or may be it won't if we back it up with more facts!) I would like to think about present and future rather than living in past glory, we as a nation has a weakness for living in the past bit too much. It is true some great past Kings have done us proud.. interesting question is, "are we doing enough at present to live up to it?" However, if there is a clear error/mistake happening in reporting, it is good if can correct it. Sooner the better!

We hear all fantastic hard to believe stories like nuclear weapons, Atlantis, space crafts and even about Ravana helping Egyptians building pyramids! yet, we are letting this great invention of Chess (which is much more easier to believe and on that even Ravana's most ardent enemies agree!) pass from us. I haven't red or hear from anywhere that any of our chess fans or historians or mythologists (mind you, even the theory Anand is putting forward is based on mythology and stories nothing else!) speaking up on this story. For western world, this may be the first time most of them have even hearing about a King Ravana and that they hear as if he was an Indian King! Now that would be little wrong wouldn't it?

When we publish an article in web, we try to give a link to the source site, if we have an image we try to give credit or link to the source. In that manner one would except at least a slight mentioning about Lanka when one is talking about Ravana and trying to claim something he has invented as theirs. One can't help thinking that above courtesy haven't been done in this case. May be this was something not intentionally done from Anand's part (for the gentleman he is), may be the press got that part missed.

Ideally, if Ravana indeed has invented chess, the credit should come few hundred kilometers southwards! Of course one can not except foreigners to talk on behalf of Lanka and carry Lanka's name forward, it should be up to Lankans. This is the biggest problem I see about Lankan historians and fans of Ravana, while they are busy trying to prove much fancier (and harder to prove) theories, they have let a real gem pass under them without even taking notice!

May be that is because Ravana fans and historians in Lanka were not that aware or interested in chess! Come to think of it, chess fans are rare in Lanka, Ravana admirers or historians are rarer still. Intersection of these two groups may be negligible! (The fact that there is a International chess tournament in Sri Lanka named after Ravana may mean it is not that negligible after all!) While in India chess is huge, and thanks to Ramayana and everyday worshiping of Hanuman and Rama as Gods, Ravana (even as a daemon!) too is a house hold name.

If there are any Lankan chess fans who are equally into history / mythology / and/or a admirers of Ravana, may be this is a topic they can and should take onwards and take into the world. That way, even if Lanaka to loose the battle on the origination of chess, at least Lanka will keep their Ravana!

Come to think of it... it would be a fun argument and a campaign to have, it will at least generate some attention to Lanka and Chess both, (not to mention Tourism) nothing much to loose anyway!

What do you think ?

PS : I found the original Times Article.

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:12 AM

    I find it quite refreshing to see someone take such an active interest in both Ravana and Chess!

    The most interesting online reading I have come across about ancient Lanka is the link "Myths & Mysteries" at http://www.lankalibrary.com/

    Specially the articles-

    "Rama, Ravana & Sita: Road to Ramayana"

    and

    "NASA Images find 1,750,000 year old man-made bridge between India and Sri Lanka"

    I guess it's up to each of us to decide for ourselves on the accuracy of the facts. But end of the day it's a very nice read!

    Cheers,
    Danuke Kuruppu

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  2. Tx for the comment and the link Danuka.

    We should let the world know that at least the current world champion thinks that chess was invented by a Lankan king! (at least for the sake of tourism! --kidding--)

    When we boast about ourselves, it has no value and difficult to convince another. When someone else does that for us, then that is good. In this case it is Ravana's old rivals themselves who say that he invented chess, that's even better!

    I just like to see we get maximum mileage out of a good PR opportunity for the country and SL chess both.

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  3. Tx ameycricketer

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  4. Anonymous6:10 PM

    Siva Ranga Keliya could be another name to Chess.

    Obata Asiri

    Nisha

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  5. Anonymous4:09 PM

    All this is bunkum. Chess was invented by aliens who taught it to Ravana and Rama. So chess came through both India and Lanka.

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  6. Anonymous4:10 PM

    Ravana actually lived more than 5 million years ago

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  7. Anonymous4:10 PM

    Ravana was a brahmin. He was the grandson of Brahma

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  8. Anonymous4:11 PM

    Ravana had alien connections

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  9. Anonymous2:30 PM

    A superb article bro...
    The History should be rewritten.
    The pride of Sri Lanka is stolen away.
    But the truth has come out. Wish that we may in future own our pride after having some true patriot historians in srilanka.

    I could do as my part in this is to post this on my Face Book wall and Twitter wall.

    Thankyou...
    ACCESSINE RKO

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  10. are you interesting about interest uncle asoka?me too.(malith achintha kodikara,thurstan college )

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  11. uncle asoka,are you interest about ravana?me too(Malith Achintha Kodikara,Thurstan college)

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  12. Oh thank uncle for your post...it's very interesting and more helpful for people who researching about king ravana.......(Malith Achintha Kodikara-Kodikara K.K.M.A.)

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  13. interested post.......

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  14. Very thought provoking article. Lankan past history is yet to come out. Our real history has been exported to India by British colonial rulers by ignorance.
    To complement this article please see "the lowest gravity on earth" discovered by NASA in 2012. This is where the cosmic energy is high. Which means " wisdom is highest at that point"
    There may be a link to this new Anand's postulation.

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  15. Anonymous7:56 AM

    ravana was MADE into a myth by vested interests. pre-historic is the period where nothing was documented on stone or leaf. everything documented on stone is TRUE and whatever pre-historic is MYTH or UNTRUE. if a crack pot wrote something on a stone in say 2BC NOW is taken as TRUE! in that case buddhism and the "stories" should be myth, up until it was documented at aluvihara temple in 1st BC. there is a belief in sri lanka that ven.mahinda brought writing to sri lanka. recent findings in anuradhapura shows on pottery a script either brahmi or not, dating back to 1200- 900 bc. i.e >400 years before mahnida's visit to sri lanka. now this is a FACT the sinhela archeologists want to hide/drown. the history by word of mouth was handed down in sri lanka and even ravana's father and his progeny of kings (like the line of kings rules after vijaya) is well known to people who call themselves HELA people. ravana would have had some 'connection' with aliens or GODS, or devas as we call them and came up with inventions. few years back they had discoverd a 'replica' of the aircraft used by ravana and the moment it was kept under sunlight, it has taken off!!! supposed to mercury as some kind of aiding to propel. well now this has happened in tha last decade. true? myth?? or not. WAARIYAPOLA means a place where aircrafts have landed. we sinhelays have crushed our HELA culture to embrace everything which came from india including mahinda's input. this was followed by embracing portugese, dutch, british crap!!! killing the hela traditions. the highly advanced hydrological society existed well before vijaya came to sri lanka. the words like BISOKOTUWA are all HELA words words - a proof that tanks culture existed in very ancient sri lanka. based on this and many more "evidence", rationally one could come to the conclusion that ravana truly existed and Ravana truely was the pioneer of aircraft invention. in fact the anglo saxon's false propoganda of wright bros is invention of aircraft is disputed by germans who flew aircrafts well before anglo saxons and recently on an olympic opening ceremony, it was claimed a south american flew an aircraft well before the wright brothers. THIS IS WHAT I CALL VESTED INTERESTS! and the sarcasm of asoka ekanayake is well accepted as he is as ignorant of all what ACTUALLY happened in sri lanka as you(who is reading this) and me!!! our history has been distorted to the HILT!

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