Chess descends from chaturanga, an early Indian game whose name means four divisions of the army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. Those four pieces became the modern pawn, knight, bishop and rook. The game spread along the Silk Road into Sasanian Persia by around 600, where it was called chatrang, and then into the Muslim world as shatranj. Europe later replaced the Persian word for king with versions of shah, which gave English the words check and chess. The oldest known chess manual, written in Arabic around 840, is lost but is quoted in later works. The oldest surviving chess pieces are ivory ones found at Afrasiab, near modern Samarkand.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.