The allegory of the name of the elephant
Chess is named after "elephant", and there are animal elephants as soldiers, is the meaning of chess refers to the chess of elephants? wrong. The "elephant" of chess is by no means the elephant of animals. In fact, until the reform of elephant opera in the Song Dynasty, in addition to elephant play, whether it is Liubo, Sai opera, Northern Zhou elephant play, Tang Dynasty elephant play, or the Seven Kingdoms Elephant Play, Guangxiang Opera, and Small Elephant Play, there is no "elephant" as a kind of soldier, if it is only because there is an animal "elephant" as a military type, then the elephant play should be named "xiangqi", then, by analogy, chess can also be named "car chess", "horse chess", "cannon chess" or even "pawn chess". In fact, the "elephant" of chess should have two meanings, so which two meanings? Listen to the editor slowly!
"Elephant" is "symbol", imagery, and allegory is war
Since ancient times, elephant drama has been a game that symbolizes war and military system. As the ancestor of elephant play, the six chess games, "one owl and five scatters" six chess pieces, symbolize the military system of five people joining together and adding one chief officer in the Spring and Autumn Period. The Tang Dynasty elephant play, marked by "Baoying Xiangqi", records a battle scene between the Golden Elephant Army and the Heavenly Kingdom in the dark. After the formation of the Song Dynasty chess, it has retained many marks of the Chu-Han War that is "as strong as Liu Xiang".
The image is a gua xiang, a sign, and the intention is the I Ching.
Whether it is the Eastern Han Dynasty Bianshao who has promoted the Sai opera, or the Wang Zhen and Yu Xin who have sung the Northern Zhou Xiang opera, they all use celestial signs, seasons, yin and yang, and gua theory to explain the meaning and essence of the elephant play; before the chess is finalized, the black and white alludes to the yin and yang chess pieces, the 8×864 squares, so that the chess board that fits the sixty-four gua of the I Ching, all show that chess and the "Zhou Yi" have an inseparable origin.
The most profound and wonderful thing to say about the relationship between chess and "Zhou Yi" is the Ming agent Lv Huai.
Lü Huai, also spelled Rude, was a famous theologian during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. He is both proficient in easy learning and quite fond of chess. In a letter to his friend Zhan Mengren, he wrote:
Eavesdropping on yi metaphors: Xihua Bagua is the final chessboard; King Wen Bagua, and then says a way, the car is straight, the horse is a day, like Tian Xing, and so on; the Sixty-four Gua of Zhou Yi, such as playing chess in a game, and then saying the change of a chess trend, when it is so, it is necessary to do so, it is as it is at that time, and it is like that. The "Miscellaneous Gua Biography" is the invention of the "Zhou Yi" gua change, just a way of survival and survival, which is why the sixty-four gua and the thirty-two gua are also said. There are auspicious and fierce, some disappear and some long, some continue to exist, some retreat and die, it is the reason why there is rigidity, sorrow, and seeking, seeing miscellaneous, starting and ending, prosperity and decline, etc., all kinds of differences, and it is a change of the Tao. The Master observed the changes in time, and his "Yi" also thought about it halfway.
This letter uses chess as a metaphor for the theory of chess, clarifying the commonalities between chess theory and the easy theory. He compares Fuxi Bagua to a chessboard fixation; King Wen's Bagua to chess footwork; compares the Sixty Gua Gua of Zhou Yi to playing chess against a game, which should be judged by the situation and made a corresponding move; and secretly compares the Thirty-two Gua to the Thirty-two Sons of Chess, pointing out that both contain "auspiciousness, dissipation, and the way of advance and retreat", and finally concludes that chess theory and easy reason are connected, and "there is no change in the Tao". Lü Huai's popular image metaphor profoundly reveals the relationship between Yi Li and Chess Theory, and interprets the meaning of the elephant of chess in a wonderful way.
In a sense, when we play chess with our hands, we are not only entertaining a game, but also feeling a philosophy, tasting a piece of history, and appreciating a culture. This is the secret of the enduring pleasure that chess brings to people.
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Article content reprinted: Xiahe Chess Academy
Source: A Brief History of Chess