95% of the world population believes in some or another supreme being or beings. The three major religions in the world are Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, with a total of 4.5 billion adherents worshipping God, Allah and Durga.

However, many of these people, possibly even without knowing it, also worship another Goddess. Her name is Caïssa, Goddess of Chess! She is believed to watch over you, the chess player, when engaged in your games. And even though you may think that you can advance in chess by putting in long hours of training strategies and tactics, and you feel sometimes that you won a game by outfoxing your opponent or lost one by an atrocious blunder of your own, none of this is really true. It is all Caïssa's work! She determines the faith of each chess player, the outcome of the games, and the chess careers of each of the dedicated players.

At least, some would like to think so...

In fact, Caïssa is not nearly as old as the game of chess itself. Her first appearance is believed to be in a poem written during the Renaissance by an Italian poet called Hieronymus Vida. The poem describes a chess game between Apollo and Mercury, and in it, Caïssa appears as a Thracian dryad (a Greek mythological tree nymph) witnessing the game together with other gods and spectators.

No actual worshipping of Caïssa takes place in the way that we worship God, Allah en Durga. But chess players worship Caïssa in their own way. For instance by naming countless chess clubs and communities after her. Parents who both are dedicated to chess may sometimes even call their daughter Caïssa, hoping that the real Caïssa will appreciate the gesture and pave out a brilliant chess career for her. This definitely worked for Kaissa, the Russian computer program that was the first to win the World Computer Chess Championship in 1974.

The master craftsman who carved the Limited Edition Chess-sets for Natraja.com prays to his god every morning before he touches is tools, he calls his god Vishavkarma, the craftsman of the universe. It is also believed that Goddess Caïssa was his consort.