BY GOLOKA CANDRA DASA
KUALA LUMPUR - Clueless people often ask the question: "Does God exist?". Count befuddled scientists too in this category. On the other hand, smart people ask the smart question: "Does God play chess?"
The second question already accepts by implication the existence of God (or Supreme Intelligence, as Albert Einstein would put it). The questioner, especially if he happens to be working in the field of artificial intelligence, is more interested to learn about the thinking processes that a supremely intelligent being would utilise to solve the complex situations arising on the chessboard that are generally beyond the calculation of ordinary mortals. The objective of the questioner is to harness the same thinking processes to solve other problems in the real world.
Ever since the birth of computers, chess has been used as a yardstick to measure progress in artificial intelligence. One indicator of such progress is the regular "Man versus Machine" matches. In the beginning of the computing age (the good old days), human champions used to trash the machines. Today computers would trash 99.99% of the human race and hold the edge against even the best human players.
It has long been the Holy Grail for researchers and computer programmers in the realm of artificial intelligence to write a program that would enable a computer to play chess perfectly, without error or inaccuracy. As perfectly as God would, should He be so inclined to play the game.
Thankfully for chess enthusiasts, modern science is way behind in its quest to fully understand the game and crack the chess riddle once and for all, and thus render the game obsolette. In fact, I doubt that we would ever see the day when computers would be able to play chess perfectly, even if the best of their breed are quite impossible to be beaten by any human player today.
Now returning to the original question as to whether God plays chess, the affirmative answer is found in the Vedic scriptures. In the Mahabharata and the Shrimad Bhagavatam, there are references attesting to the chess-playing pastimes of the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna with His royal consorts in Dvaraka.
Even during His childhood frolics with the cowherd boys and girls in the forests of Vrindavana, the Lord is fond of playing chess. His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, writes thus in the "Nectar of Devotion" Chapter 42:
"...Krishna played with His intimate friends sometimes by fighting or wrestling with their arms, sometimes by playing ball and sometimes by playing chess."
So yes, God (addressed as Sri Krishna in the Sanskrit texts) does play chess. But if anybody out there is harbouring any delusions of challenging God to a match, be forewarned though that He is very selective about who He chooses to play with.
First you have to make a lot of spiritual advancement to qualify yourself to see God, before you can even think of playing with Him. According to the Vedic scriptures, only a spiritually elevated person will be able to see God face-to-face (let alone play chess with Him).
Amazing as it may seem, there were some exceptional mortals, even in comparatively recent history, whom God actually chose to play chess with. As the following history reveals.
Mathematicians and scientists love to quote this story (in some form or other) to explain mathematical concepts related herein, for example, exponential progression and binary numbers. Even the downright atheistic and those with little faith in God, love to quote this fascinating chess-playing pastime of God in order to explain mathematical ideas. You too will be similarly fascinated after you read our narration below.
In a small town called Ambalappuzha in Alappuzha district of Kerala state in South India, there is a famous ancient temple of the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna. This temple is believed to have been built more than a thousand years ago by a local king named Chembakasserry Pooradam Thirunal-Devanarayanan Thampuran.
This temple has a historic link with the renowned Guruvayur temple. When Tipu Sultan plundered the region in 1789, the Sri Krishna deity (Sri Guruvayurappan) from Guruvayur was safely brought to the Ambalappuzha temple and sheltered there in a special shrine that is now called Guruvayur Ambalam.
The temple attracts many visitors and tourists and its popularity is attributed to the nectarean quality of the paal payasam served there daily to all pilgrims. It is said that even Sri Guruvayurappan daily visits this temple (where He once resided) just to relish the paal payasam.
Paal payasam is a rich desert made of milk, rice and jaggery and is generally served during special occasions and festivals only. In particular, on the solar New Year day in mid-April when the Sun completes a full revolution and returns to the first sign of Mesha (Aries) on the sidereal zodiac. This solar New Year Day is celebrated throughout India and the surrounding countries in some form or other, in accordance with local customs. In Kerala state, it is called Vishu and paal payasam is prepared in all households for this special occasion.
However the daily tradition of serving paal payasam has been going at the Ambalappuzha temple for centuries as a direct result of a chess-playing pastime of the temple's presiding deity, Lord Sri Krishna. The game of chess was then known as chaturanga, the ancient and more complex version compared to the modern game.
Sri Krishna desired that paal payasam be served to the pilgrims at the Ambalappuzha temple DAILY, and not just on major festival days. But who would sponsor such an undertaking?
As is generally the case, the temple administration is under the jurisdiction of the local king, who also happened to be a great devotee of the Lord as well as a champion chess player. So the Lord assumed the form of a brahmana sage and appeared before the king in his royal court, and challenged him to a chess match.
Since chess is a military-themed strategy game, it was generally played by the kings and kshatriyas (military class) of the time. They would also play for high stakes. When the king inquired what the stake would be, the brahmana answered: "Rice grains", and stipulated that the number should correspond to the squares of the chessboard -- one grain for the first square, two grains for the second square, four grains for the third square and so forth, each square doubling up on the previous, until all the squares on the chessboard are covered.
The king was puzzled by the brahmana's strange request which seemed paltry to him. But as a king, he was bound by the kshatriya (military) code of honour to accept a challenge to combat or competition. So he agreed to the brahmana's proposal.
The chess match started. The king, though a very experienced and competent player, was inevitably outplayed by the divine sage who won the match. The magnanimous king offered to gift gold and other valuables to the brahmana for his victory. But the brahmana stuck to his guns and insisted that the king pay him just the rice grains that they had played for.
The king called for a sack of rice. His servants started piling the rice grains according to the stipulated formula corresponding to the squares on the chessboard: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 grains...
Immediately the king realised what the divine sage had known all along, that the numbers would explode exponentially to impossible magnitudes soon. By the 20th square, the number of grains would exceed one million. By the 40th square, the number would exceed a trillion.
The king realised that this rate of progression would soon empty all his royal granaries. Nay, even all the rice in the world would not be sufficient to fulfill his debt to the brahmana.
To give an idea of the astronomical size of the numbers generated by the pre-agreed rules of this chess match, the total number of rice grains that would correspond to a 64-squared (8 x 8) chessboard is 2 ^ 64 - 1 which is exactly 18446744073709551615.
In approximate terms, this is about 10 ^ 18 * 18, or 18 billion billion rice grains. It is estimated that this number would cover the land surface area of modern India seven feet high in rice grains.
The king, as the chief enforcer of the laws of the land, knew well the penalty generally imposed on a person who defaults on his debt -- that he would lose all his material possessions to his creditor. Now he was honour-bound to adhere to the same principle that he enforced.
Although the honourable king was prepared to accept the imminent loss of his wealth and kingdom, still he was feeling very wretched and helpless over being unable to keep his plighted word to the brahmana. The king gazed at the divine personality before him and wondered who is this extraordinary person who had outplayed him and what is his purpose.
Lord Krishna, seeing the king in his predicament, revealed His true form to His dear devotee and gave him a reprieve -- that he need not pay his debt on the spot, but that it can be paid by daily instalments.
Lord Krishna ordered that the king and his descendants should prepare and serve paal payasam (sweet rice cooked with milk and jaggery) at the Ambalappuzha temple every day until such time that the rice grain debt is repaid fully (in the form of paal payasam).
So this in short is the fascinating history of the Ambalappuzha temple and how its long-established tradition of offering paal payasam daily to the presiding deity and then distributing it as prashadam (food sanctified by offering to the Lord) to the pilgrims originated from a historic chess match between Lord Krishna and the king.
