Sissa is the mythical inventor of
chess.
In India, there was a king who had lost a great battle. All he would do, day in, day out, was sit in front of a sandbox in which he would draw diagrams, trying to figure out what went wrong in the battle.
Enter Sissa. This man invented a board game, a simulation of the battle the king was obsessing over. This game is that chess we all know and love.
The King wanted to reward Sissa for showing him the lesson of chess, that a king is nothing without the support of his men. Sissa said that he would accept a single grain of wheat as his reward. Naturally, the king refused, since Sissa certainly deserved a larger reward.
Sissa then said, "If it pleases Your Majesty to do so, may He place one grain of wheat on the first square of the chessboard, two grains on the second, four grains on the third, doubling the number with each square, and so covering all 64 squares on the board with the wheat which I will take for my reward."
The king had his reckoners compute the necessary number of grains of wheat. Upon learning the total, the King said, "Very well, Sissa, but you must count them out yourself."