Quaternity — An Order in Action
- Javier Romano
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Body, City and Play
“The body is like a city, the heart like a king,
reason like a vizier who administers affairs,
and thoughts like an army.”
Sultan Walad (Rumi’s son), The Secret Language
This text does not seek merely to recount the origin of this fascinating strategic game, but rather to explore the structure of meaning that Quaternity sets in motion. Through its form, its dynamics, and the relationships it generates, the game appears to reflect an order that does not belong exclusively to the domain of the board, but instead points toward broader scales: the human body, the traditional city, and the way action unfolds within a shared space. From this perspective, Quaternity may be read not only as a strategic practice, but as a diagram in action.
In the Introduction to the International Rules of Quaternity (Arif Shah, 2016), the story of its creation is briefly recounted:
“Quaternity was born, after a long labour, one evening in January 2014 at a rest stop on a caravan in India—Rajasthan to be more precise. As with all births, a story preceded it. Elements of this story were brought together by the four of us there that evening, and indeed these elements or chapters can be seen reflected in the game itself. We were all different: Afghan/Italian, Russian, Argentine, and Indian, and yet we had come together to travel as friends in search of ‘truth’ in this great, generous, baffling and restless country: India. This is my side of that story.”
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The origins of Quaternity appear to lie in a creative exploration aimed at making chess a less rigid and confrontational game. It is often said that its creator, inspired by observing medieval cities, was struck by their internal structure and balance. This led him to imagine a game based on similar principles, one in which movement and strategy could exist without being necessarily centred on offence.
According to accounts of its early development, experimentation began with the idea of relocating the pieces to the corners of the traditional chessboard. It soon became apparent, however, that the standard board was too small to accommodate such a concept. In response, the board was expanded by incorporating additional vertical and horizontal rows. Later, during a train journey through India, the creator and a few friends continued to explore different configurations and arrangements. Through this iterative, step-by-step process, Quaternity gradually took its present form. Even so, it is often described as a project in constant evolution, open to refinement and adaptation over time.
A City in Balance
From accounts of this creative process emerges the comparison between the form of a city and the internal dynamics of Quaternity. Like a city protected by its walls, Quaternity offers the possibility of independent internal activity: movement and strategy can unfold without the need to adopt an offensive approach.
In chess, most moves tend toward aggression and attack where the central theme revolves around armies locked in violent, frontal confrontation. Quaternity, by contrast, introduces a sense of stability. The expanded physical space between and within the sides encourages a more fluid and less combative style of play.
“Chess is war, Quaternity is life.”
Arif Shah
In Quaternity, it is even possible—if the players so choose—to perpetuate a state of balance indefinitely. This aspect reflects the internal order of a medieval city. Quaternity thus becomes not only a strategic game, but also an exploration of harmony and coexistence, offering players a choice between aggression and equilibrium.
This perspective finds a particularly clear articulation in the work of Titus Burckhardt, (The Symbolism of Chess), who observes that the chessboard corresponds to the classical Vāstu-mandala, the same diagram underlying the traditional layout of a temple or a city.
Kalachakra Mandala. Tawang Monastery. Arunachal Pradesh, India. Image credit: Kingshuk Mondal
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Such a diagram, he explains, symbolises existence conceived as a field of action: a structured space in which higher forces articulate themselves through form and movement. When the symbolism of the pieces is transposed into the spiritual domain, the king represents the heart or spirit, while the remaining pieces correspond to the various faculties of the soul. Their specific modes of movement express different ways of realising the possibilities contained within the board: axial (rooks), diagonal (bishops), or intuitive (knights). The axial movement, which cuts across the different colours of the board, embodies a logical and assertive principle, while the diagonal movement, bound to a single colour, corresponds to an existential continuity of a more receptive, traditionally feminine nature. The non-linear leap of the knights, by contrast, corresponds to intuition.
Read alongside Sultan Walad’s image of the human being as a city governed from within— the heart as king, reason as vizier (later queen), and thoughts as an army—Burckhardt’s interpretation reveals a shared symbolic language. In both cases, the game ceases to be a mere abstraction or a metaphor for conflict and becomes instead a diagram of order in action, where inner faculties and outer forms reflect the same underlying structure.
From this point of view, Quaternity may be understood as an extension of this symbolism into a relational space. If the board contains four cities—or, analogously, four human centres—play is no longer reducible to war, but becomes interaction within an ordered cosmos governed by its own laws. Checkmate, in this context, is transformed from an act of destruction into one of integration: victory does not consist in eliminating the other, but in the capacity to absorb, transmute, and sustain the weight of what has been integrated.
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As a concrete example, one may observe the following game, in which more than a thousand moves were played (1,028 in total), and not a single checkmate occurred. Instead, three players ran out of time, so the last player whose turn it was obtained the victory.
At move 213, the first conflict or catalyst occurs, when White sacrifices a knight to capture Green’s advanced central pawn. On the following move, Red sacrifices a bishop to take a White pawn.
At move 240, Red loses a knight to a Green bishop.
At move 282, Red sacrifices a knight to capture a Black pawn, opening Black’s side to Green.
At move 383, Black captures a Green pawn.
At move 385, White captures a Green knight.
At move 402, Red gives check to Green.
The true intensity of the game—the middle game—takes place around moves 700-800, but play continues for more than another 200 moves. Eventually, White runs out of time. Red and Black then also exhaust their time. Green, whose turn comes afterwards, is the last player standing and wins the game.
An Endgame Without Checkmate
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At the same time, many poets and thinkers have suggested that action always unfolds on more than one level. J. L. Borges captures this paradox succinctly when he observes:
“God moves the player, and the player, the piece.”
A similar idea is expressed in the Bhagavad Gītā (3.27), which states:
“Actions are performed in all cases by the qualities (guṇas) of nature;
but one whose self is deluded by ego thinks, ‘I am the doer.’”
Omar Khayyam voices a related intuition in his Rubaiyat when he asks:
“How can I err? I act as it is written.”
The same understanding is articulated with striking clarity in the Qur’an:
“You did not shoot when you shot, but God threw.” (Al-Anfal 8:17)
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From this perspective, decisive action does not belong solely to the player; the real act is carried out through a higher agency within which the player acts, generally believing himself to be the active agent. It has been suggested that games such as chess engage the human organism so fully that the ego becomes bound to form and rule, allowing subtler faculties to operate beneath conscious awareness. (see Arif Shah, Introduction to the International Rules of Quaternity). Seen in this light, the Quaternity board becomes a stage upon which different levels of action unfold simultaneously. Moves, sacrifices, and checkmates appear to arise from individual decisions, yet they also express a broader configuration that no single player fully controls. The game thus mirrors life itself: freedom exists, but not in isolation; choice matters, but within an order that exceeds the chooser.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, Scene VII
Checkmate, in this context, is not the negation of the other, but a moment of convergence, in which dispersed forces are gathered into a new configuration. What appears as an ending on one level is, on another, a transformation and expansion of responsibility.
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As a further example, consider the following game and its highly suggestive sequence of moves, where nothing is quite what it seems and the consequences of the moves cannot be fully grasped until they have already unfolded.
—Click on the link below and, in the menu on the left, go to move 278. Play the sequence back and forth several times to fully appreciate how it develops.—
At move 278, Red gives check to White with the queen on C5. In most games, another player would seize this opportunity either to complete the checkmate, or — if that is not possible — to capture a valuable piece, preferably the queen. This is precisely what Green does, albeit inadvertently. At move 280, Green uses a bishop in an attempt to eliminate White’s queen. What this move actually enables, however, is that White— while still in check—can deliver checkmate against Red.
Red gives check to White. After that, Green aims a bishop at the White queen.
Thanks to Green’s bishop, White executes a check-checkmate against Red.
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This is a clear example of involuntary collaboration between parties. A careful observation of the position, rather than an automatic reaction aimed at “targeting the queen,” would have prevented this outcome. Yet what would be classified as an error in other mind sports becomes, in Quaternity, an added value: a demonstration of how action, intention, and consequence do not align in a linear or binary manner.
In this sense, Quaternity may be read not only as a game, but as a training ground for a different mode or relation—one in which interaction does not require annihilation, and order emerges through cooperation rather than war.
Does this not point to a hidden pattern, or to a deeper design that governs it all?
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