Dragon Throne Palace of Heavenly Purity Forbidden City Beijing

The Dragon Throne () was the

throne A throne is the seat of state of a potentate or dignitary, especially the seat occupied by a sovereign (or viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory ...

of the

Emperor of China Throughout Chinese history, "Emperor" () was the superlative title held by the monarchs of imperial China's various dynasties. In traditional Chinese political theory, the emperor was the " Son of Heaven", an autocrat with the divine mandat ...

. As the dragon was the emblem of

divine Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a singl ...

imperial power, the throne of the Emperor was known as the Dragon Throne. The term can refer to very specific seating, as in the special seating in various structures in the

Forbidden City The Forbidden City () is the Chinese Empire, imperial Chinese palace, palace complex in the center of the Imperial City, Beijing, Imperial City in Beijing, China. It was the residence of 24 Ming dynasty, Ming and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasty L ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

or in the palaces of the

Old Summer Palace The Old Summer Palace, also known as Yuanmingyuan () or Yuanmingyuan Park, originally called the Imperial Gardens (), and sometimes called the Winter Palace, was a complex of palaces and gardens in present-day Haidian District, Beijing, China. I ...

Metonymically Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such as salespe ...

, "the Dragon Throne" can also refer to the

Chinese sovereign The Chinese sovereign was the ruler of a particular monarchical regime in the historical periods of ancient China and imperial China. Sovereigns ruling the same regime, and descended from the same paternal line, constituted a dynasty. Several ...

and to the Chinese monarchy itself. The

Daoguang Emperor The Daoguang Emperor (16 September 1782 – 26 February 1850), also known by his temple name Emperor Xuanzong of Qing, personal name Mianning, was the seventh List of emperors of the Qing dynasty, emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the sixth Qing e ...

is said to have referred to his throne as "the divine utensil." ::"My sacred and indulgent father had, in the year that he began to rule alone, silently settled that the divine utensil (the throne) should devolve on my contemptible person. I, knowing the feebleness of my virtue, at first felt much afraid I should not be competent to the office; but on reflecting that the sages, my ancestors, have left to posterity their plans; that his late majesty has laid the duty on me -— and heaven's throne should not be long vacant -— I have done violence to my feelings, and forced myself to intermit awhile my heartfelt grief, that I may with reverence obey the unalterable decree and on the 27th of the 8th moon (October 3rd), I purpose devoutly to announce the event to heaven, to earth, to my ancestors, and to the gods of the land and of the grain, and shall then sit down on the imperial throne." The

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

on the board above the throne read 正大光明 (''Zheng Da Guang Ming''), which has various translations including “Fair-dealing and Upright” or “Just and Honorable”.

Seat of State

The dragon was the chief symbol on the imperial flag and other imperial objects, including the throne or imperial utensil. The dragon was said to have the power to become visible or invisible—in short, the dragon was a factotum in the “divinity business” of the Chinese emperors. The dragon was the imperial crest on royal monuments, and displayed on the Emperor’s robes. The Grand Chair of State was also called the “Dragon Throne.” This is the physical seat of state in the Hall of Supreme Harmony (also known as the “Hall of Highest Peace”). It is a uniquely crafted object which was used only by the Emperor. When European and American military forces pushed their way into the

Peking Beijing, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city by urban area after Shanghai. It is l ...

after the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

in 1900, they were the first men from the West to appear in the presence of the Dragon Throne since 1795, when

Isaac Titsingh Isaac Titsingh FRS ( January 1745 – 2 February 1812) was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Isaak Titsingh" in . During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the ...

and

Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest (1 November 1739 in Werkhoven – 8 July 1801 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch-American merchant who is mostly known for his participation in the last Netherlands, Dutch embassy to China under the tribute, tributary ...

were received with grace and ceremony by the

Qianlong Emperor The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China pr ...

. William Elliot Griffis was among those who actually stood with cameras and notebooks before the Dragon Throne on a sunny September day in 1900, and he described what he saw: ::There was the throne itself, a great three-leaved affair. Over the ample seat in the centre, with a high reredos, two great wings spread off from the central division. All was white marble and jade, liberally sculptured according to the canons of Chinese art. Along the top lay and leered dragons, each one "swinging the scaly horror of his folded tail" toward the central seat, his head projecting outward in the air. Below the throne were the three steps, on the broad second one of which the suppliant performed the nine prostrations or knocks of the head.

History

In Imperial China, the seat of power was called the Dragon's Seat or the Dragon Throne. The process of accession, the ceremonies of enthronement and the act being seated on the Dragon's Throne were roughly interchangeable. The Dragon Throne was an hereditary

monarchy A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, reigns as head of state for the rest of their life, or until abdication. The extent of the authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutio ...

in China before 1912. In much the same sense as the

British Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

, the Dragon Throne became an abstract metonymic concept which represented the monarch and the legal authority for the existence of the government. According to tradition, the Chinese Empire began with the

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ) was the first Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China. It is named for its progenitor state of Qin, a fief of the confederal Zhou dynasty (256 BC). Beginning in 230 BC, the Qin under King Ying Zheng enga ...

in 221 BC; and the chronology of the emperors continued in unbroken succession until the fall of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

in 1912. For a short time in 1917, to whatever extent the Chinese emperor was held to be as symbol of the state and its people, the Dragon Throne would have been construed as a symbol of a

constitutional monarch Constitutional monarchy, also known as limited monarchy, parliamentary monarchy or democratic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in making decisions. ...

Rhetorical usage

This flexible English term is also a

rhetorical Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writ ...

trope. Depending on context, the Dragon Throne can be construed as a

metonymy Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word " suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such as sales ...

, which is a rhetorical device for an allusion relying on proximity or correspondence, as for example referring to actions of the

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

or as "actions of the Dragon Throne." The Dragon Throne is also understood as a

synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy; it is a figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term is derived . Common English synecdoches include '' ...

, which is related to metonymy and metaphor in suggesting a play on words by identifying a closely related conceptualization, e.g., * referring to a part with the name of the whole, such as "Dragon Throne" for the mystic process of transferring Imperial authority, e.g., ::In 1368, " e of the

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328– 24 June 1398), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Ming, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, courtesy name Guorui, was the List of emperors of the Ming dynasty, founding emperor of the Ming dyna ...

's first acts upon ascending the Dragon Throne was to set up a network to spy on his subordinates and to register the entire population of China for the first time." * referring to the general with the specific, such as "Dragon Throne" for emperorship (or the supreme autocrat of China) or Imperial China itself, e.g., ::In 1418, " e fleet moored just outside

Malindi Malindi is a town on Malindi Bay at the mouth of the Sabaki River, lying on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya. It is 120 kilometres northeast of Mombasa. The population of Malindi was 119,859 as of the 2019 census. It is the largest urban centr ...

's coral reefs (off the east coast of what is today known as

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

). From the belly of the big ships came small rowboats and men in lavish silk robes. And among the faces were some the king recognized. These men he knew. They were his own ambassadors whom he had dispatched months ago on a tribute-bearing mission. Now emissaries of the Dragon Throne were returning them home, and they brought wondrous things to trade. But had so many men and so many ships come in peace or had they come to make the citizens of Malindi subjects of the Son of Heaven?" * referring to the specific with the general, such as "Dragon Throne" for the long reign of the

(r. 1736–1795) or equally as well for the ambit of the Imperial system, e.g., :: In 1921, "... the movement for the restoration of the Throne will eventually have the hearty approval of the vast majority of the people. They will welcome it, not only because the Dragon Throne has been for ages an essential part of the Confucian system, inseparable from the ideas of an agricultural race born and bred on patriarchal Theism, but also because of the callous corruption and disorder with which the present administration has been identified all over the country.Bland, John. (1921)
''China, Japan and Korea,'' p. 299.
/ref>

Notes

* * * * * * * *

References

* Arnold, Julean Herbert. (1920)
''Commercial Handbook of China.''
Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce; Government Printing Office
OCLC 3882862
* Bland, John Otway Percy. (1921)
''China, Japan and Korea.''
New York: W. Heinemann
OCLC 252248839

"Chinese Coronation: Coronation of Taou-Kwang, the new Emperor of China,"''The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany.''
(

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

). London: William H. Allen & Co. Vol. 13 (1822 January–June), pp. 332–335. * Griffis, William Elliot. (1911)
''China's Story in Myth, Legend, Art and Annals.''
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
OCLC 850353
* William Elliot Griffis. (1901)
''In the Mikado's Service: A Story of Two Battle Summers in China.''
Boston: W.A. Wilde Co
OCLC 4591145
* Levathes, Louise. (1996)
''When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433.''
Oxford:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. {{ISBN, 978-0-19-511207-8 * Ricalton, James. (1901)
''China Through the Stereoscope: A Journey Through the Dragon Empire at the Time of the Boxer Uprising.''
New York: Underwood & Underwood
OCLC 5871769
* Williams, Samuel Wells. (1848)
''The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the ... Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants.''
New York: Wiley & Putnam
OCLC 2276049
Individual thrones Government of Imperial China

Seat of State

History

Rhetorical usage

See also

Notes

References