My Great Predecessors

MY GREAT PREDECESSORS [in 5 volumes] is a series of books authored by the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov. This book is not just a compilation of play of the early greats of chess. Kasparov's biographies of these champions places them in a fascinating historical, political and cultural context. Kasparov explains how each champion brought his own distinctive style to the chess board and enriched the theory of the game with new ideas.

One of the early greats of chess is American legend Paul Morphy [1837-1884]. At the end of his career, he abndoned chess, became a recluse with mental disorder.

The first official world chess champion Wilhelm Steinitz [1836-1900] ended his days in poverty and in a mental asylum on an island near New York. He went there by boat, clutching to his chest a small chess board imagining that he moved his pieces and struck down his opponents. He longed to play both with Lasker [his successor, 2nd world chess champion] and with God himself- and he was sure that he could win...

Well, how could these great intellectuals lost their thinking faculties before the physical body?

Explanation is found in classic Panchatantra stories:

आदो चित्ते ततः काये सतां संपद्यते ज़रा

असतां तू पुन: काये नैव चित्ते कदाचन
[Great people become old in their mind first and then in body. But ordinary people, even if become very old in body, will continue to be greedy and hence mind will not be old]

I admit that the translation has not been very effective. I will be grateful, if somebody can suggest better wordings. Further, errors have crept in the sanskrit words aadau and tu. Somehow, I am unable to rectify the same.