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Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Fri, May 31, 2024 05:57 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 03:18 PM:

On rukh: A. Panaino "La novella degli scacchi e della tavola reale", 1999, p167-174. 7 pages to deal with this issue. Concluded by: non mi sembra necessario cercare a tutti i costi di inserire un "carro" nella lista dei pezzi del WCN. L'interpretazione "fianco" si pone come una soluzione non solo elegante sul piano della restituzione filologica, ma estremamente economica su quello etimologico. Infatti, se è evidente, come è comunamente accettato, che Ferdowsi non riconosce nel rux (=rukh) un "carro".

I cannot re-type the 7 pages, but even if you look at Murray pp159-160 you will see that 1) "Rukh is less simple", 2) "chariot" is not among the established senses in Persian, but "cheek" is. Then Murray tries to see a trace of "chariot" in Arabic. As, the piece was often represented as a chariot (even symbolic) the quote 'araba for rukh is understandable.

What Panaino is explaining (citing other scholars before him like MacKenzie) is that this piece was understood as an officier standing on the side of the army (the "cheeks") and that it was represented on a chariot, the chariot being no more used as a weapon on the 6th century but used by officiers to command on the troops. In 1913, Murray didn't have all these analysis.


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