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Chovgan, Chowgan or Chogan () is a team sport with horses that originated in ancient Iran (Persia). It was considered an aristocratic game and held in a separate field, on specially trained horses. The game was widespread among the Asian peoples. It is played in Iran, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
It was later adopted in the Western World, known today as polo.
English people had a significant role in the distribution and development of the game in Europe and around the world. Chovgan was later brought from India to England in the 19th century it became more popular, and the addition of new rules favored the spread of this game in Europe and the United States. Namely, on the initiative of Englishmen, this game acquired its present name, "polo," and was included in the program of the Olympic Games held in 1900 in Paris.
Polo was, at first, a training game for cavalry units, usually the king's guard or other elite troops. In time polo became an Iranian national sport played generally by the nobility. Women as well as men played the game, as indicated by references to the queen and her ladies engaging King Khosrau II and his courtiers in the 6th century AD. Certainly Persian literature and art give us the richest accounts of polo in antiquity. Ferdowsi, the famed Iranian poet-historian, gives several reports of royal chogan tournaments in his 9th-century epic, Shahnameh (the Book of Kings). In the earliest version, Ferdowsi romanticizes an international match between Turan force and the followers of Siyâvash, a legendary Iranian prince from the earliest centuries of the Empire; the poet is eloquent in his praise of Siyâvash's skills on the polo field. Ferdowsi also tells of Emperor Shapur II of the Sasanian dynasty of the 4th century, who learned to play polo when he was only seven years old. Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan is a polo field which was built by king Abbas I in the 17th century.
Sultan Qutb al-Din Aibak, a Turkic peoples military slave from present-day Northern Afghanistan who later became Sultan of Delhi Sultanate for only four years, died accidentally in 1210 while playing polo. While he was playing a game of polo on horseback, his horse fell, and Aibak was impaled on the pommel of his saddle.
From Persia, polo spread to the Byzantines (who called it tzykanion), and after the Muslim conquests to the Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties of Egypt and the Levant, whose elites favored it above all other sports. Notable sultans such as Saladin and Baybars were known to play it and encourage it in their court.
Later on Polo was passed from Persia to other parts of Asia, including the Indian subcontinentMalcolm D. Whitman, Tennis: Origins and Mysteries, Published by Courier Dover Publications, 2004, , p. 98. and China, where it was trendy during the Tang dynasty and frequently depicted in paintings and statues. Valuable for training cavalry, the game was played from Constantinople to Japan by the Middle Ages. It is known in the East as the Game of Kings. The name polo is said to have been derived from the Standard Tibetan word "pulu", meaning ball.Sports and Games of the 18th and 19th centuries by Robert Crego. page 25. Published 2003. Greenwood Press. Sports & Recreation. 296 pages In 2017, Chogān in Islamic Republic of Iran was included in the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List.
One of the varieties of this game was broadly cultivated in Azerbaijan. Two teams strive to score a goal with special clubs. Rules in the modern edition of the game are the following: two goals with a width of 3 meters with semi-circled areas with a radius of 6 meters are fixed in enough big place. The game was held with a rubber or woven leather belt ball. Clubs can be different in form. In Azerbaijani, the clubs are reminiscent of a shepherd's crook. There are six riders in each team, 4 of whom act as attackers and two as fullbacks. The latter can play only in their half of the area. Goals can be scored behind the borders of the penalty area. The duration of the game is 30 minutes in two periods.
In 1979, a documentary called “Chovgan game”, shot by Azerbaijan's Jafar Jabbarly film studio recorded the sport's rules and historical development. However, overall the Soviet era saw a decline of the sport to near 'oblivion' Film interview at 7'36" and the dislocations of the immediate post-Soviet period proved difficult for the breeding of horses. In recent years, however, the sport has rebounded somewhat. Since 2006, Azerbaijan has held a national tournament in December known as the President's Cup at the Republican Equestrian Tourism Center, Azernews report on the 2013 President's Cup competition at Dashyuz near Shaki. The first of these, held from December 22–25, 2006, pitted teams from eight cities of Azerbaijan – Shaki, Aghdam, Ağstafa, Balakən, Qakh, Gazakh, Oğuz, and Zagatala with those from Aghstafa taking overall victory.
In 2013, chovqan was included in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of urgent safeguarding. Chovqan, a traditional Karabakh horse-riding game in the Republic of Azerbaijan
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