Chariot is traditionally considered as one of the chief elements of the Indo-European culture, enabling us to characterize it as a "patriarchal and warlike" society. Although Old-Indian is often, and sometimes improperly, considered as one of our best testimonies for reconstructing Indo-European, it is shown that the vedic material doesn´t confirm this view: the chariot, as a sign of standing, has already many symbolic values, and even philosophical ones in some speculative contexts. This prefigures the meaningful upanishadic theme of the wheel and its bhakti developments. The chariot (and the chariot wheel) takes a prominent part in the duel between Arjuna and Karna (MBh. 8. 66) as the literary and philosophical achievement of its many vedic values and in continuity of it.