Chess

  Definitely, the game of chess is a physical, philosophical, and cosmological allegory. It is known not only to artists and film directors but also philosophers and members of various secret societies. Even the superficial glance on colour's symbolism tells us that is an opposition of some forces. Not only in the cosmos but in our personal life also. And we cross this black-and-white board through mysteries of our vital journey. We also participate in this eternal battle of Light and darkness.

Originated in India, Chaturanga appears in the Mahabharata and the form of the chess-board corresponds to Vāstu-mandala. It has been pointed out that this diagram symbolizes existence conceived as a "field of action" of the divine powers.  The alternation of the black and white squares in this elementary diagram of the chess-board brings out its cyclical significance and makes of it the rectangular equivalent of the Far-Eastern symbol of yin yang. It is an image of the world in its fundamental dualism.
There is a  famous legend according to which the inventor of the game asked the monarch to fill the squares of his chess-board with grains of corn, by placing one grain on the first, two on the following, four on the third, and so on up to the sixty-fourth square, which gives the sum of 18,446,744,973,709,551,661 grains. The cyclical symbolism of the chess-board resides in the fact that it expresses the unfolding of space according to the quaternary and octonary of the principal directions (4 x 4 x 4 = 8 x 8), and that it synthesizes, in crystalline form, the two great complementary cycles of sun and moon: the duodenary of the zodiac and the 28 lunar mansions ; furthermore, the number 64, the sum of the squares on the chess-board, is a submultiple of the fundamental cyclic number 25920, which measures the precession of the equinoxes. We have seen that each phase of a cycle, “fixed” in the scheme of 8 x 8 squares, is ruled by a heavenly body and at the same time symbolizes a divine aspect, personified by a Deva. Al Mas‘ūdī, an Arab historian, is therefore right to say that the Indians explain, "by calculations based on the chess-board, the march of time and the cycles, the superior influences which are exerted on this world, and the bonds which attach them to the human soul ..."
In medieval Europe, King Alfonso X of Castile describes  in 1283 a very ancient variant of the game of chess, the "game of the four seasons", which takes place between four partners, so that the pieces, placed in the four corners of the chess-board, move in a rotatory direction, analogous to the movement of the sun. The 4 X 8 pieces must have the colours green, red, black, and white; they correspond to the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter; to the four elements: air, fire, earth, and water, and to the four organic "humours". The movement of the four camps symbolizes cyclical transformation.

Sri Shiva Chaturlinga mandala

If to consider game as a microcosm of our individual life that the king represent the spirit; the queen the mind; the bishops the emotions; the knights the vitality; the castles, or rooks, the physical body. The game of chess thus sets forth the eternal struggle of each part of man’s compound nature against the shadow of itself. The nature of each of the chessmen is revealed by the way in which it moves; geometry is the key to their interpretation. Each piece moves in accordance to cosmic patterns. The rook representing the body moves to the square or cross, symbolic of earth and its connection to the heavens. The knight, or vitality, moves in the design of swastika, an ancient symbol representing the recurrence and resurgence of cycles. The bishop, or emotions, move in the order of the cosmic cross representing the opposition required for deification. The queen, or mind, moves by the square and the compass representing the powers over body and emotions. The king is the head piece and is the Spirit our Soul of the individual and orders all other pieces in their moves. The king can never be taken from the board. If victorious, the king surpasses this earth and its environs and moves to a higher order in the cosmos. If the king fails, he is trapped, eternally damned by the the pieces mating him, which represent the darkside of himself. Lastly, the pawn may move straight forward, or when taking a piece, diaganol to the left or right, forming a bent cross, which is a type of the initiates path of becoming as well as the initiate’s need for prayer, as this is also a representation of a man with his arms stretched to heaven. It should be noted that if the pawn traverses the game board reaching the opposite end it becomes a queen, transcending its own innate form and becoming the ultraform embedded in its constitution.

  Thus, the game of chess represents, in its most universal meaning, the combat of the devas with the asuras, or of the angels with the demons, and all other meanings deriving from this one. This battle of two armies each of which is fighting in the name of a principle, or that of the spirit and of darkness in man; these are the two forms of jihad or the holy war; the "lesser holy war" and the "greater holy war", according to a saying of the Prophet Muḥammad. 

At each stage of the game, the player is free to choose between several possibilities, but each movement will entail a series of unavoidable consequences, so the end of the game being seen as the result of rigorous laws or Dharma.

In our hard time we can go into squares of different colour but we should understand firmly what is the party for which we play.

OM NAMAH SHIVAYA