The original rules of chess

I found a site that has how chess was originally played and some of the pieces moved very different from the way they are moved today. Here is the site:

http://ancientchess.com/page/play-shatranj.htm

Shatranj is indeed a form of chess. It is actually not known what the original form of this chess was. They believe the original is older than Shatranj.

http://www.chess-poster.com/english/notes_and_facts/oldest_chess_game.htm

Note the key words "First known".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga

This appears to be the oldest known version.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj

With Shatranj being close second.

Thing is I am unsure what the differences but this might also help.

www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/diffeacuterence-between-chaturanga-and-shatranj

I think we should be in the frame of mind that we still don't know the original version.

Ok you have a point but the article gives you a sense of how games were played back then. Imagine not being able to move 2 squares on the first pawn move or the queen limited to just 2 diagonal squares.

I guess the changes were made for the modern version we play to help speed up the game.

@JoseO

Yes, you are totally right about that. Western chess (with rules dating back from cca 1600, minor modifications were added later) was developed to be faster than shatranj, it's direct predecessor.

However, even if openings were very long and took many moves, there was a way to overcome that. There were many opening positions for shatranj. It's kind of like if you were playing modern chess from move 10 in Najdorf Sicilian (just an example).

Something like this cam be seen in modern derivatives from chaturanga, Thai chess (makruk) and Burmese chess (Sittuyin). In makruk pawns are on the third and sixth row at the beginning of the game and in sittuyin both players start from one of couple of possible stages. Check it out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sittuyin