Chaturanga (or, more fully, chaturanga dandasana) is a yoga posture, something similar to the plank or press-up done in gym exercise classes. Chaturanga comes from two Sanskrit words, meaning 'four' and 'limb'. It suddenly struck me that the chatur of chaturanga, was very similar to the Russian word for four, chetyre (четыре). Neither of those words are that far removed from the French for four, quatre.
The ancient Proto-Indo-European (PIE) for 'four' is presumed to have been kwetwor, or kwetwores. Looking at this chart of the numbers 1-10 in lots of different Indo-European languages, you can see the similarities between the languages themselves, and the progression from PIE. Note that 'four' in Germanic languages doesn't seem to belong to the group. The OED says the phonological relationship of Germanic words for 'four' to those in other languages has not yet been fully explained.
Apart from the yoga posture, chaturanga is also the name of an ancient Indian board-game. Again, the etymology was 'having four parts' but in ancient Indian epic texts chaturanga was used as a synonym of 'army', because an army was traditionally made up of four sections: elephants, chariots, soldiers on horses and infantry soldiers. This game was the forerunner of chess (with the elephants becoming bishops, cavalry soldiers becoming knights, and so on). The Indian game chaturanga became known in Persia as chatrang, then it became known among Arabic speakers, when the pronunciation of the name was adapted to suit the Arabic language and became shatranj. The word entered Middle English from French (eschès).
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