THE CHARIOT COMPLEX IN OLD CHINESE: IRANIAN AND TOCHARIAN LOANWORDS (A VERIFICATIONAL ANALYSIS)

ABSTRACT The present article continues the series of studies entitled "The Old Iranian Origins of Chinese Lexis" and develops the conclusions set forth in the works "Introduction to the Series of Studies," "Daoism as Philosophical Synthesis: Old Iranian Traces in the Sacral Lexis of China," and "Spirits, Magicians, and Sacred Streams: A Linguistic Reconstruction of the Old Iranian Origins of the Core Sacral Lexis of China." Whereas in the preceding studies borrowings in the sphere of philosophical, mantic, and sacral lexis were verified, the present work turns to the semantic field associated with one of the most striking examples of technological transfer in antiquity—the chariot complex. Why is the earliest depiction of the Chinese chariot iconographically identical to depictions of chariots in the cultures of the Eurasian steppe, located thousands of kilometers from the Yellow River basin? Why is the key term describing the action of driving horses graphically connected with a component that bore no relation to Chinese reality prior to the sudden appearance of the chariot around 1200 BCE? And why do certain terms of chariotry still lack a convincing explanation within the framework of internal Chinese etymology? On the basis of a verificational method that presupposes the primacy of semantics and phonetic approximation under conditions of dialectal heterogeneity in Old Chinese, the work undertakes an attempt to reconstruct the external origins of the lexicon associated with the chariot, its handling, and its attendant rituals. Special attention is devoted to the systemic character of the presumed borrowings: they are not isolated, but form a semantically related stratum, which together with previously verified lexis points to a large-scale transfer not only of technologies, but of entire institutional complexes. The article contributes to the formation of a new paradigm, which views ancient Chinese civilization not as an isolated phenomenon, but as the result of a complex Eurasian cultural synthesis. Keywords: Old Chinese, chariot complex, sinograph 车 / 車, language contact, loanwords, verificational method, historical linguistics, cultural synthesis, etymology, phonetic reconstruction.