Chess Arrives, Backgammon Goes Back
شطرنج و نرد
A board game sent as a diplomatic insult, and the reply.
An embassy arrives from India with treasure and a chessboard, and a challenge attached: work out how this game is played, with no instruction, or pay us tribute, because it will prove we are the cleverer nation.
The Persian court fails for a week. Then Bozorgmehr, Anushirvan's minister, asks for a day, studies the pieces, and reconstructs the entire game: the ranks, the moves, the war it is modelling. Then he beats the ambassador at it repeatedly in front of everyone.
Then he does the harder thing. He invents a new game, backgammon, and sends it back to India with the same challenge. The Indians cannot solve it, and pay the tribute.
Why it matters
One of the oldest written accounts of chess anywhere, and a useful corrective to the idea that the epic is only battles: a substantial part of the Sasanian section is court wisdom, riddles, and administration. This is also where the Persian word for checkmate comes from: shah mat, the king is helpless.