Sources: https://shahnameh.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/literary; [[Reference Notes/Scale]] The author, Ferdowski, is to the Persian language what Goethe is to German, Pushkin to Russians, or Shakespeare to English. Around the time it was written, chess was being introduced to Persia from India. Ferdowsi used the chessboard to illustrate exponential growth. It is the famous story of doubling a grain of rice for every square on the chessboard, leading to an absurdly large figure.