Shatranj

This is Chaturanga after it crossed to Persia and took a new name. The earliest mention is in a Persian text from around 600 CE. A story is told that an Indian envoy brought it to the court of Khosrow I (r. 531–579), but this stays at the level of anecdote and has not been confirmed as strict historical fact. By around 650 it had reached the Arab world and the Byzantine court. One thing that happened here matters — in the Islamic world, theory books were written and opening patterns were studied. This is the first place a board game became something to study. From there it crossed into Europe.