War… and finally peace

Our little elephant chess piece, therefore, tells tales of war, of imperial aspirations, and perhaps most of all, of cross-cultural contact across (and beyond) the Asian continent.

To Indian and later to Persian chess players, the elephant pieces on their game-board were stand-ins for the living, moving animals that they recognized from real life. Elephants were powerful, stampeding instruments of war, or grand, awe-inspiring actors in an imperial, diplomatic and ceremonial display.

To Chinese players, on the other hand, the qualities associated with elephants took on a different form. In part due to the rarity of elephants native to China, and in part due to the cultural influence of Buddhism, the elephant shed its military connotations to become synonymous with longevity and universal peace. War elephants in China were deployed only sporadically until the early Ming dynasty which ruled between mid-fourteenth to mid-seventeenth century Even a quick glance at the jade elephant made for the Qianlong emperor in the eighteenth century can eloquently express these ideas: with feet firmly planted on the ground and its head coolly turned to the side, this figurine gives no indication that it might break from its pose anytime soon, much less charge at an enemy.

Nevertheless, elephant pieces remained part of xiangqi and, by virtue of the homonym between ‘elephant’ and ‘likeness’ that inspired the allusion to cosmic order, the game is still sometimes called ‘elephant chess’.