• The traditional pair of colours used are red and green. • In the starting position, each king faces the opposing queen; from both players' viewpoints, their king is to the right of their queen, regardless of color. This is unlike western chess, where the kings face each other, as do the queens. • The pawn's two-step initial move is absent in Indian chess; thus, the
en passant capture is also absent. The pawn captures diagonally as Western chess. • Normal castling with rook and king is absent. The unchecked king can make a
knight's move once in a game, known as
Indian castling or ''king's leap''. This is used to make the king jump into protected wall of pawns of pieces, conceptually similar to castling. •
Moves of Queen and Bishop: In late 19th and 20th-century iterations of traditional Indian chess, European influence largely standardised the moves of the minister (queen) and elephant (bishop) to align with international modern standard; however, contemporary manuals do mention that, traditionally, these were the weakest pieces on the board: the minister (as its successor
ferz) was limited to a single-step diagonal move, while the elephant (bishop) acted as an
alfil, jumping exactly two squares diagonally and leaping over intervening pieces. These are the same moves mentioned in
Mānasollāsa. The boat/chariot (rook), king, horse (knight) and pawn moves are the same. • On reaching the opposite end of the board, a pawn is
promoted to a piece of the type that began on that square. If it is promoted on the
king's initial position, it is promoted to a
queen. (On the contrary, in
Chaturanga, as per
Caturangadīpikā, the pawn becomes permanently frozen if it reach the king's square called
Siṁhāsana.) •
Frozen Pawns: Although not a universal mandate, regional variants of traditional Indian chess enforced a strict conservation of pieces, likely dictated by the limitations of physical sets, ensuring a player could never exceed their initial material inventory. Consequently, should a pawn reach the final rank of a file whilst its corresponding piece type (such as both rooks, both knights, or the singular minister/queen) remains fully intact on the board, it enters a dormant, 'frozen' state. This immobile pawn remains vulnerable to capture as a standard pawn; however, should a piece of that corresponding type be subsequently lost, the frozen pawn instantly resurrects it without forfeiting a tempo, assuming the promoted piece's full capabilities on the ensuing turn. Thus, pawn promotion in this context operates fundamentally as
piece resurrection. Notably, a pawn stationed on either bishop file may resurrect a bishop of either square colour, potentially resulting in two bishops navigating same-coloured diagonals; this illustrates that the law of material constancy governs solely the maximum quantity and type of pieces, rather than their specific positional or chromatic allocations. • If there is only one piece remaining other than the kings, it may not be captured. Alternatively, it may be captured unless it is a pawn. • When only the kings and
pawns are left in play, the opponent may not give check, but they can win by stalemate. Alternatively, giving check is allowed, but the capture of the last pawn (which would result in a draw) is disallowed by the previous rule. • The king cannot move until at least one check has been given, though this is a regional variation. ==Names of the pieces==