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Antique Indian elephant chess piece representing the king. The pil, alfil, alpil, or elephant is a fairy chess piece that can jump two squares diagonally. It first appeared in shatranj. It is used in many historical and regional chess variants. It was used in standard chess before being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The rules of chaturanga seen in India today have enormous variation, but all involve four branches (angas) of the army: the horse (knight), the elephant (bishop), the chariot (rook) and the foot soldier (pawn), played on an 8×8 board. Shatranj adapted much of the same rules as chaturanga, and also the basic 16-piece structure.
Elephant (Modern) 1X, ~ 2X: FA: Alber's Courier-Spiel (1821), Shako (Chess) (1990), Reformed Courier Chess, Metamachy (2012) Combination of Ferz (medieval Queen) and Alfil (medieval Bishop, shatranj Elephant). Also called Falafel (R. Betza), Ferfil (G.P. Jelliss), or Ferz Alfil. It is the Archer in Begnis's Reformed Courier-Spiel. Elephant ...
Mantri (minister); also known as senapati (general): moves one step diagonally in any direction, like the fers in shatranj. Ratha (chariot) (also known as sakaṭa) moves the same as a rook in chess: horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares. Gaja (elephant) (also known as hasti).
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. [1] Because Tamerlane chess is a larger variant of chaturanga, it is also called Shatranj Al-Kabir (Large chess or Great chess), as opposed to Shatranj as-saghir ("Small Chess").
Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon and dice named the Libro de los juegos, which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games.
In shatranj, the medieval game from which chess developed, the piece corresponding to the modern bishop was known as Pil or Alfil ("Elephant"; from Persian and Arabic, [p] respectively). [75] In the Indian chaturanga game the piece is also called "Elephant" ( Gaja ).
New pieces are the cannon from xiangqi (Chinese chess) and an elephant moving as a fers+alfil of old shatranj (ancestors of queen and bishop), so diagonally one or two squares with jumps allowed. By Jean Louis-Cazaux (1997). [40]