They correspond to knight, bishop and rook. that was 6th century and the history of chess has been for 1,500 years at least. Persians came up with modified version later on. Around B.C 2nd century, from China, arose a game called Xiang-gi which became popular in China, Korea and Japan.
Chess and Xiang-gi are similar but very different also.
Chess reached Russia and Mongolia at the beginning of 7th century. Around 10th century it reached Iberinian penninsula. By 13th century, chess spread all over Europe. Eventually, chess spread all over the world and U.S and Soviets became dominant forces of chess. Nowadays, many good players come from around the world such as Eastern Europe, U.S, Russia, India and some Asians. The chess tournament started in 20th century and produced many good players such as Garry Kasparov and Vishy Annand.
