Daniela Dumbravă

University of Florence, Italy

 

 

The k’ou-t’ou, a Political and Religious Ceremonial at the Court of the Ch’ing Dynasty

Brief Note about the Milescu – K’ang-hsi Case (June 1676)

 

 

Abstract: The paper makes use of a seventeenth-century European source which might be seen as giving direct evidence of Manchu court rituals, and of their diplomatic customs. As a matter of fact, in the 16^th and 17^th century European cultural perception, Eastern Asian civilization was still of a fabulous nature. K’ang-hsi had political relations with the Russians, one of the most powerful Empires at the end of the seventeenth century. It was in 1689 at Nerčinsk that the Asiatic Empire signed a peace treaty with a European power. Before that, the Manchu Emperor had met one of the first Ambassadors of the Tsar Aleksej Michajlovič in China, the Moldavian literate (notably the first translator of the Septuagint in Walachia), Nicolae Milescu Spătarul (1636-1708) and granted him an official audience (1676). Before performing the requisite ritual, Milescu, as a diplomat, questioned its religious connotation, more specifically the religious implication of the k‛ou-t‛ou or kowtow, causing a lot of problems.

Keywords: China; Confucianism; Ch’ing tributary system; Sino-European diplomacy; court rituals; Nicolae Milescu.

 

(…) « man is in a situation, that is, in history».

M. Eliade[1]

 

 

General context

 

For a long time Sino-European international trading, diplomacy and the development of foreign affairs were influenced by the Chinese perception of their own institutional and cultural superiority over the (European) “barbarians”. One of the sacred representations of the tributary system was the kowtowing ritual (cin. k‛ou-t‛ou), which literally means to knock one’s head (against the ground). This Manchu ceremony involves going down on both knees and bowing the head down to the ground. All Europeans (ambassadors, envoys, merchants, religious missionaries) used to perform it, without exception, when they were received in audience by the Emperor at Peking, as outward proof of their obedience. However, the Europeans as Christians were suspicious of the religious implications of the imperial audience rituals and of the political customs. Many European embassies (between the 17^th-19th centuries) failed just for this ”particular reason”.

All official encounters between European diplomats and the Chinese imperial court were essentially shaped by the hosts’ particular conception of emperorship. The figure of the Emperor during the Ch’ing dynasty, who requested this peculiar rite, was endowed with numerous and diverse attributes:

– firstly, he was a Manchu lord[2] of Inner Asia (Outer and Inner Mongolia) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, extending his powers over the north-eastern Asian regions of Xinjiang and Qinghai, as well as Tibet and Manchuria[3];

– secondly, the triangular relationship between Manchu, Mongol and Tibetan sacred symbols and functions gave him a sort of polymorphic religious image: as an huangchi (supreme lord), as a boγda, which means holy, divine, venerable, reverend, master, lord[4], and qaγan (cin. k’o-han), that is born in Heaven, a derivation from the Son of Heaven. The emperor happily accepted consecration from Tibetan Buddhist lamas along with various names and titles such as cakravartin king[5] (an idea which originated in India, as an essential attribute of the ideal king), and bodhisattva Mañjuśrī[6], personification of the Buddha’s intellect/wisdom.

– thirdly, he also mediated between macrocosm and microcosm, between Heaven and Earth as tsun-ch’in, “Sovereign and Father”. According to Chinese political[7] theory he was the Son of Heaven, the father of the entire human race, the “unique man” able to appeal to his ancestors for blessings or to dissipate ancestral curses that affected the state (therefore, claiming to be the Sovereign and Father of foreigners as well as of his own people). M. Waida[8] holds that in the Qin and Han period (221 BCE-220 CE) the emperor had no divine connotation and so had nothing to do with other Asiatic religious conceptions of kingship. His opinion may be correct in certain historical contexts, but from a comparative point of view, the astronomical homologation between the Son of Heaven and the Polar Star worked to widen the symbolic fear of kingship.

– fourthly, Manchu shamanism had been adopted as part of the official cults. Therefore, besides the social and political significations, it was necessary to distinguish between the Uralic – Altaic religious and cultural tradition and Manchu imperial ritualism. In this respect it might be helpful to cite from emperor Qianlong’s (1711-1799; r. 1736-1795) introduction to the Imperially Commissioned Code of Rituals and Sacrifices of the Manchus published in 1747[9]:

“The shamans of the past were all people born locally, and because they learned to speak Manchu from childhood, [in] each sacrifice, ceremony, ritual, offering of goods, preparatory offering, propitiatory offering, offering of cakes, offering of pigs against evil, and sacrifice for the harvest and sacrifice to the Horse God, they produced the right words, which fully suited the aim and circumstances [of the ritual]. Later, since the shamans learned the Manchu words by passing them down from one to another [without knowing the language], prayers and invocations uttered from mouth to mouth no longer conformed to the original language and to the original sound”[10].

According to Confucian imperial ethics[11] the recognition of the imperial authority depended on this “mandate of Heaven” and could not become a permanent possession of the ruler[12], who was expected to provide tangible proof of his election.

The complex mechanism of the imperial rites (cin. wuli) was rigidly supervised, as it helped the emperor to maintain strong and durable control over the court and government. James Hevia[13] mentions five central rites under the coordination of the Supreme Lord, the Emperor:

1) jili: the rite of sacrifices to Heaven and Earth and a sacred function of the Chinese emperor formulated in the Han period (202 B.C. – A.D. 9);

2) jiali: felicitous rites, involving the assembly of the entire official corps before the eyes of the emperor, thereby reflecting the cooperation between ruler and the bureaucrats in charge of writing the memorials[14] relating to European diplomatic missions. These were daily and accurate accounts of the European envoys’ activities from the moment they entered Chinese territory till they reached Peking, amounting to genuine surveillance reports. The Embassies’ pending status was strongly connected with the production of these official documents.

3) junli: the martial rites, in reference to the emperor as warrior;

4) binli: the emperor’s relations with other lords, which served to regulate the conduct of foreign affairs. These rites embracing the k’ou-t’ou custom constitute the primary focus of this paper.

5) and finally nongli, the funeral rites.

According to the historian Nicola Di Cosmo, Manchu court rituals during the Ch’ing dynasty make up a complex which can be the object of different topics, involving different scientific approaches (evaluated in part by other researchers), such as: the history of the Manchu language and texts and the cultural context[15], the social and political function of the Ch’ing regime[16], ethnic diversity[17], and so on. However, the subject is extremely vast, much too “specialised” and accessible only to the East-Asiatic or Inner Asiatic specialists[18], better known to historians of the modern science of Europe and Asia and addressed by the historians of religions[19] only in the light of their specific interests.

The different meanings of the imperial figure along with various issues concerning this subject are successfully analysed by James Hevia, in his extremely accurate and multi-faceted work on Lord Macartney’s British Embassy at Peking in 1793[20].

The present paper makes use of a European seventeenth-century source that might be seen as giving direct evidence of Manchu court rituals and their diplomatic customs. As a matter of fact, European cultural perception of Eastern Asian civilisation still has a fabulous nature in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. For example, for a polyhistor such as Athanasius Kircher (Oedipus Aegyptiacus) the Far East languages, Chinese and Japanese, fall in the category of languages to which the unarticulated voices of animals and birds belong, the origin of Chinese writing is connected with the immigration of the biblical tribe of Noah and Cham from Egypt to Persia and Bactria, and so on. Nevertheless, Leibniz as well as Kircher, assumed that the languages of Europe and Asia were derived from one and the same language: the “lingua Adamica”[21]. In fact, we may say that, except for Jesuit familiarity with East Asia and the Extreme-Orient, an adequate European cultural representation was lacking at the time. Most European diplomatic or foreign affairs were commercially motivated[22]: Peter van Horn (1666-1668), Vincent Paats (1685-1687) from Holland, Manoel de Saldanha (1667-1670) from Portugal, numerous Bukharan merchants, and so on. All of them accepted to “kowtow” in front of the Emperor or in front of the Altar of Heaven, but their situation differs from the one of Russian embassies at Peking.

 

Historical context

 

K’ang-hsi had political relations with the Russians, one of the most powerful Empires at the end of the seventeenth century. It was in 1689 at Nerčinsk that an Asiatic Empire signed a peace treaty with a European power for the very first time and that the Orthodox faith extended its sway as far as the shores of the Pacific. Before that, the Manchu Emperor had met one of the first Ambassadors of the Tsar Aleksej Michajlovič in China, the Moldavian literate (notably, he was the first translator of the Septuagint in Walachia), Nicolae Milescu Spathar (1636-1708) and granted him an official audience (1676). Before performing the requisite ritual, Milescu, as a diplomat, questioned its religious connotation, more specifically the religious implication of the k‛ou-t‛ou. From that moment on there arose many problems. In this regard his difficulty consisted, first of all, in setting a political precedent at Peking: the last diplomatic Russian mission (twenty years before), Baikov’s mission (1656) had failed because he refused to “kowtow”. Imperial sources[23] (cin. shih-lu) are clear as to the reasons for his dismissal, noted by the Li-fan-yüan (The Office of the Colonial Affairs):

“Since the ambassador is ignorant of our ceremonies, it is improper to grant him an audience. Their tribute is refused and he is ordered to return to his own country”.[24]

One might briefly note that Nicolae Milescu had accumulated extensive experience in the field of European diplomatic relations. He served and represented Romanian Princes (Gheorghe Ghica, Ştefăniţă Vodă, and so on) at Stockholm, Paris, Constantinople, Stettin, Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow. He arrived in Moscow (1671) at the tsarist court because he had been strongly recommended by the Dosithei Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. Also a literate, he was able to gain political trust and so benefited from protection from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexei Matveev, one of the most influential persons under Aleksej Michajlovič’s reign (1648-1676). Three years after his arrival at Moscow’s tsarist court, Nicolae knew already that he ought to prepare his departure for East Asia. This moment will be a turning –point in his diplomatic career which will launch him on a different path. In fact, there is quite a difference between “Nicolao Spadario Moldavo-Lacone” (his ancestors seem to have Greek origins), “Nicolae Milescu Spătarul”, “Nikolai Gavrilovič Spafarij”, “Nicolas Garevs” and “Ni-ku-lai Han-po-li-erh-o-wai-ts’ê”, different denominations for the same person. Different denominations for different historical contexts and semantics where Milescu found himself, these also go to make up the multi-faceted biography of our protagonist.

At the imperial court in Peking in 1676 before the K’ang-hsi Emperor as Bugdychan, Mañjuśrī, Son of Heaven, Tsun-ch’in or Sovereign and Father of the entire universe, Milescu must decide whether or not to “kowtow”: here is man in a situation, in history, as M. Eliade would say. If he decides to knock his head and to perform the k’ou-t’ou before the Manchu Emperor, first, he may discredit the political institutions he represents and the sovereignty of his tsar; second, he may trespass against injunctions of the Christian Orthodox credo and be judged an idolater. If he refuses to perform this rite, he may be sent on his way back to Moscow just as Baikov was.

“At that very moment (as the moon was full) the Askaniama arrived, bringing with him head people from the Board, and stating that the Khan had given orders that the Ambassador [Nicolae Milescu Spathar] was to go the next day, an hour before dawn, to see the great Khan’s eyes and kowtow according to their custom. […] The Ambassador answered that he was ready to render all due honour to the Khan, but it was customary in all countries in the world to bow to the sovereign in the ordinary way. However, my master, knowing that your custom differs, ordered me to bow to the Great Khan as people bow to the Tsar himself, so that the former should not think that this honour was impugned. It is also a religious question, for we, ourselves, only kneel to God. […] If you don’t agree to kowtow after our fashion, we cannot present you to the Khan, and the whole business is ruined”[25].

At Peking to kowtow (cin. k‛ou-t‛ou o k‛ou-shou) means literally to knock one’s head (against the ground). This Manchu ceremony involves going down on both knees and bowing the head to the earth. Kowtow was used also by the Europeans (ambassadors, envoys, merchants) and it is referred to as a form of obeisance performed by persons when received in audience by the Emperor at Peking, when being given an imperial mandate, or for other ceremonial occasions in honour of the Emperor. The “obeisance” is called in Chinese san-huei chiu-k‛ou shou and literally means three kneelings and nine knockings of the head[26]. It is performed by going down three times on both knees and at each kneeling bowing the head three times to the ground. It is a matter of performance of this latter ceremony. The first European attestation for this Manchu custom was offered by the Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell in his Historica Relatio:

“Le Père (Adam Schall) obéit donc et, pour tant de munificence, il rendit grâces à la manière des Tartares, en s’agenouillant et en inclinant la tête jusque sur la terre à neuf reprises”[27].

Our difficulty today stems from our prior approach to this historical fact. In this particular empirical case, the actors, Milescu (Ambassador of Russia) respectively Ma-la (the Vice-President of the Li-fan-yüan), find themselves involved in a serious diplomatic controversy: first, the Manchu unchangeable ceremonial versus the European custom of bowing before the sovereign in the ordinary way, by simply bowing the head. The ceremony involved the body, but the real problem is that this gesture works as a synecdoche (as James Hevia specified): the k’ou-t’ou is a symbol of acceptance on the part of the giver or performer of the suzerainty of the Chinese emperor and a sign of submission[28]. In fact, he summarized [29] the scholarly treatment of Ch’ing imperial rites[30]:

– symbolic approach, the rite as either culturally specific or archetypal sign;

– functional approach, the rite as an instrument by which social and political structures are made legitimate.

However, he accepted that “China produced no disinterested body of law, and hence no rationalized relations between culture, political power structure, society, and the individual”[31], and he also suggested that “ritual might have been useful for maintaining internal political order”, preserving “the Chinese conception of imperial power or policy defence”, but also the “great anchor preventing traditional China from responding creatively to the West.”[32]

This multi-faceted approach to the k’ou-t’ou suggests the limitation of any postulate of a cause-effect category of thinking. Obviously, the historian is more than a narrator (Paul Veyne), he is a supervisor or an analytic third actor with a large set of tools to apply to his task: theoretical, empirical, comparative and contextual facts.

I asked myself, thinking of Milescu and of the Ch’ing imperial li: as historian, shall I place more emphasis on the religious differences or misunderstanding between Europe and Asia, or on the incompatible views of the meaning of sovereignty? I hope that my paper has managed to suggest the falsity of this question! So, summarising, we know that k’ou-t’ou is a crucial li (cin. li, ritual, ceremony, etiquette) at the Ch’ing imperial court, also forming part of religious phenomena; it is a link between the tributary system and European diplomatic rules, and so on.

I will follow the emic (the distinctive and functional value of the cultural phenomenon within its own system) or the intrinsic sense of this term (k’ou-t’ou), as Hevia suggests[33] as well. Therefore this immanent character of the term permits, according to the same source, a synecdoche (think of a part-whole type of relationship) and a homology (structural similarities); but if I want to turn back to relate the rites with the polymorphic religious function of the emperor, I really think we need a sort of “spectroscopic” vision for the same li. In other words, I would like to simply remind the reader that we are talking about binli, the set of emperor rules whereby he established his relations with other lords and shaped his foreign affairs. Hevia’s illuminating suggestion that the k’ou-t’ou is more than a postulate of the imperial power is very precious indeed, but I’m afraid that it is not enough to demonstrate how the Ch’ing emperor would have a concrete benefit in keeping his ritual order and maintaining the foreign affairs as well.

For the historian, one hermeneutic path is indeed to try to follow the “spectroscopic”[34] dimension of any symbolic and functional religious term, a method which:

– first, allows for a large interpretative variation of any kind of interaction (comparative or synecdoche);

– second, enlarges the space for any morphologic approach (an adequate approach for the emic value of any historical context, consequently, the appropriate homologies);

– third, opens up an unlimited space for interpretation because the historian really doesn’t know when the meaning of any symbolic and functional term will stop to interact with history.

However, for the history of Ch’ing foreign affairs, the historian had only one constant element: the millenarian understanding of li at the imperial court. He has lots of variables and for any interaction between East Asiatic religious or/and political systems with a different one, there resulted a specific, a distinctive and an open, not necessarily an antithetic, relationship.

 

Unconcluded summary

 

Milescu accepted to kowtow before the K’ang-hsi emperor, when he was finally granted an imperial audience, but didn’t actually comply with this same request at the reception of imperial gifts. The political terms of imperial sovereignty between Russia and China were empirically decided by a peace treaty at Nerčinsk (1689) as a result of harsh negotiations for the north oriental limes of China, near the river Argun. This treaty is still valid and is important because it is the first political treaty between a European and an East Asiatic empire, a sort of excellent exam for the first official north Eurasian frontier. The treaty has no specification concerning diplomatic ceremonial behaviour.

 

 

Selected bibliography

A. Western primary sources:

Adam SCHALL von BELL, Historica Relatio eorum quae contigerunt occasione concentrationis Calendarii Sinici facta a R.P. Joanne Adamo Schall Societatis Jesu sacerdote (translated into French: Relation historique des événements qui se produisirent à l’occasion de la correction du calendrier chinois, faite par R. P. Jean Adam Schall, prêtre de la Compagne de Jésus. Tientsin 1941) [Abrev. A. SCHALL, HR];

John F. BADDELEY, Russia, Mongolia, China. Being some Record of the Relations between them from the beginning of the XVIIth Century to the Death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich A.D. 1602-1676. Rendered mainly in the form of Narratives dictated or written by the Envoys send by the Russian Tsars, or their Voevodas in Siberia to the Kalmuk and Mongol Khans & Princes; and to the Emperors of China. With Introductions, Historical and Geographical also a Series of Maps showing the progress of Geographical Knowledge in regard to Northern Asia, during the XVI^th, XVII^th, & early XVIII^th Centuries. The Texts taken more especially from Manuscripts in the Moskow Foreign Office Archive. The Whole by John F. Baddeley, Author of The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, Macmillan and Company, London 1919, Vol. I-II, pp. 15-ccclxv + 1 f. er. + tab. geneal. A-I, mappe, etc., xii-466, New York 1970². [Abrev. RMC]

Thomas PEREIRA (1645-1708), Relação diaria da viagem dos embaixadores da China Tumque Cam (T’ung Kuo-kang) e Somgo Tu (Songgotu), athé à povoação de Nip Chu (Nipchu o Ni-p’u-ch’u o Nercinsk) e successo das pazes entre o Imperio sinico e Moscovitico escrita pella testemunha individual dos mesmos embaixadores abaixo assinada, no anno de 1689 com todas as circunstancias e miudesas que podem os curiosos apetecer, 1689 = J. SEBES.

John NIEUHOFF, Het Gezantschap der Neerlandsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den Grooten Tartarischen Cham, Den Tegenwordigen Keizer van China, Amsterdam 1665; trad. Engl. An Embassy from East India Company of the United Provinces to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperor of China. Translated by John Ogilby, London 1669.

George Leonard STAUTON, Secretary of the Embassy and Minister Plenipotentiary in the absence of the Ambassador. An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, G. Nicol, London 1797.

 

B. Chinese primary sources:

LO SHU FU, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820), 2 vol., Published by the Association for Asian Studies by the University of Arizona Press, Tucson 1966. [abbrev. DCSWR].

 

C. Secondary sources:

Robert P. BLAKE; Richard N. FRYE, “History of the Nation of the Archers (The Mongols) by Gregor of Akanc Hitherto Ascribed to Malak’ia The Monk: The Armenian Text Edited with an English Translation and Notes”, Harvard Journal for Asiatic Studies [HJAS] vol. 12, n°3/4 (Dec., 1949), pp. 269-399.

H. O. R. BRIX, Geschichte der alten russischen Heeres-Einrichtungen von den fruehesten Zeiten bis zu den von Peter dem Grossen gemachten Veränderungen, Berlin 1867.

C. R. BOWDEN, The Modern History of Mongolia, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1968.

Audrey BURTON, The Bukharans: A Dynastic, Diplomatic and Commercial History, 1550-1702, Palgrave Macmillan 1997.

Nicola Di COSMO, “Manchu shamanic ceremonies at the Qing court”, State and court ritual in China (ed. by Joseph P. McDERMOTT), Cambridge U. P., Cambridge 1999, p. 352-398.

Nicola Di COSMO, Ancient China and its enemies. The Rise of nomadic power in East Asian history, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge 2002.

Francis Woodman CLEAVES, Manual of the Mongolian Astrology and Divination, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1969.

Francis W. CLEAVES, “The Mongolian Names and Terms in The History of The Nation of The Archers by Grigor of Akanc”, HJAS 12, n°3/4 (Dec. 1949), pp. 400-443.

Walter Eugene CLARK, Two Lamaistic Pantheons, Harvard University Press, vol. I-II, Cambridge Mass. 1937;

Pamela Kyle CROSSLEY, Evelyn S. RAWSKI, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History”, HJAS 53 (1993), no. 1, p. 63-102.

Michael DILLON, “Dictionary of Chinese History”, Frank Cass and Company Limited, Gainsborough House, London 1979.

Mircea ELIADE, “Recent works on shamanism. A Review Article”, History of Religions 1 (1961), no. 1, p. 152-186.

Mircea ELIADE, Patterns in Comparative Religion, Meridian, New York 1963.

Mircea ELIADE, Shamanism. Archaic techniques of Ecstasy, Bollingen Series, Princeton, 1972.

J. K. FAIRBANK, S. Y. TÊNG, “On The Transmission of Ch’ing Documents”, HJAS 4 (1939), no. 1, p. 12-46.

J. K. FAIRBANK, S. Y. TÊNG, “On The Ch’ing Tributary System”, HJAS 6 (1941), no. 2, p. 135-246;

David M. FARQUHAR, “Emperor as Bodhisattva in The Governance of the Ch’ing Empire”, Harvard Journal for Asiatic Studies 38, n°1 (Jun., 1978), pp. 5-34;

Lo- shu FU, “The Two Portuguese Embassies to China during the K’ang-hsi Period”, TP 43 (1955), pp. 75-94;

Noël GOLVERS, The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (Dilligen, 1687), Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, 28, Nettetal, 1993.

Noël GOLVERS, Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese Heaven, Leuven University Press 2003.

James L. HEVIA, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macarteny Embassy of 1793. Duke UP, Durham 1995; [Reviewed by Pamela Kyle CROSSLEY, in Harvard Journal for Asiatic Studies, vol. 57, n°2 (Dec., 1997), 597-611];

James L. HEVIA, “Lamas, Emperors and Rituals: Political Implications in Qing Imperial Ceremonies” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 16, n°2 (1993), 243-278;

James L. HEVIA, “A Multitude Lords: Qing Court Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793”, Late Imperial China 10, nr. 2 (Dec. 1989), 72-105;

James L. HEVIA, “Sovereignty and Subject: Constituting Relations of Power in Qing Guest Ritual”, in Angela Zito and Tani E. Barlow, Body, Subject, and Power in China, Chicago UP, Chicago 1994;

Étienne LAMOTTE, “Mañjuśrī”, T’oung Pao [TP] 48, fasc. 1-3 (1960), pp. 1-96;

Marie- Thérèse de MALLMAN, Étude iconographique sur Mañjuśrī, École française d’Extrême-Orient, Paris 1964;

Louis LIGETI, “Deux Tablettes de T’ai – tsong des Ts’ing”, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae [AOH], VIII, fasc.3 (1958), pp. 201-239.

Louis LIGETI, “Documents sino – ouigours du Bureau des Traducteurs” (I), AOH XX, fasc. 3 (1967), pp. 253-306.

Louis LIGETI, “Documents sino-ouigours du Bureau des Traducteurs” (II), AOH XXI, fasc. 1 (1968), pp. 45-108.

Michael LOWE, “The Authority of the Emperors of Ch’in and Han”, States and Law in East Asia. Festschrift Karl Bünger (eds. Dieter EIKEMER, Herbert FRANKE), Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1981.

James R. HAMILTON, Les Ouïghours à l’époque des Cinq Dynasties, Paris 1955.

Mark MANCALL, Russia and China. Their Diplomatic Relations to 1728, Harvard U.P. [Harvard East Asian Series 61], Cambridge Massachusetts, 1971.

E. Delmar MORGAN, “An Expedition through Manchuria from Pekin to Blagovestchensk in 1870 by the Arhim. Palladius, chief of the Russo-Greek Church Mission to Pekin”, JRGS 42 (1872), pp. 142-180.

James A. MILLWARD, Beyond the pass. Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864. Stanford UP, Stanford California 1998;

Joseph NEEDHAM, Science and Civilisation in China, III, Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, 1959.

Paul PELLIOT, “Neuf notes des Questions d’Asie Centrale”, TP XXVI (1929), pp. 201-265.

Paul PELLIOT, “L’Ambassade de Manuel de Saldanha a Pekin”, TP 27 (1930), pp. 421-424 ;

Luciano PETECH, “Some Remarks on the Portuguese Embassies to China in the K’ang-hsi Period”, TP 44 (1956), pp. 227-241;

Luciano PETECH et alii (ed.), Giovanni di Pian di Carpine, Storia dei Mongoli, Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Spoleto 1989.

Earl PRITCHARD, “The Kotow in the Macartney Embassy to China in 1793”, The Far Eastern Quarterly [FEQ] vol. 2 (Feb., 1943), pp. 163-203;

Evelyn S. RAWSKI, “Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in the Chinese History”, JAS 55 (1996), no. 4, p. 829-850.

Evelyn S. RAWSKY, The Last Emperors. A Social History of Qing Imperial Institution, University of California Press, Berkeley 1998;

P. Abel RÉMUSAT, Recherches sur les langues tartares, ou Mémoires sur différents points de la grammaire et de la littérature des Mandchous, des Mongols, des Ouigours et des Tibétaines, Paris 1820.

Pierre Abel – REMUSAT, Mèlanges asiatiques, I, Dondey-Dupré, Paris 1825-1826;

W.W. ROCKHILL, „Diplomatic Missions to the Court of Peking: The Kotow Question“, in American Historical Review, II (April and July 1897), pp. 427-442 (1); pp. 627-643 (2).

Jean-Paul ROUX, “L’origine céleste de la souveraineté dans les inscriptions paléo-turques de Mongolie et de Sibérie”, La regalità sacral. The Sacral Kingship, Leiden, 1959, p. 231-241.

Giorgio DE SANTILLANA, Hertha von DECHEND, “Il mulino di Amleto. Saggio sul mito e sulla struttura del tempo” (a cura di Alessandro PASSI) [Hamlet’s Mill. An Essay on myth and the frame of time 1969], Adelphi Edizioni, Milano 2000⁸.

H. F. SCHURMANN, “Mongolian Tributary Practices of the Thirteenth Century”, HJAS 19. 3/4 (1956), pp. 304-389.

J. SEBES, The Jesuits and The Sino-Russian Treaty of Nertcinsk. The Diary of Thomas Pereira S.J., Istitutum Historicum S.I. volumen XVIII, Rome 1961;

Rolf A. STEIN, “Saint et Divin, un titre tibétain et chinois des rois tibétains”, Manuscrit et inscriptions de Haute-Asie du V^e au XI^e siècle, Journal Asiatique CCLXI (1981), no. 1-2, pp. 231-275.

Lynn A. STRUVE, The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, Harvard University Asia Centre, Harvard UP, Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2004;

Gustav SCHLEGEL, “Le Koteou en Russie” in TP IV(1893), pp. 114-143;

Nathan SIVIN, „On the word Taoist as a Source of Perplexity. With special Reference to the Relation of Science and Religion in Traditional China“, History of Religions 17 (1978), no. 3-4, p. 303-330.

Boleslaw SZCZESNIAK, „The Origin of the Chinese Language According to Athanasius Kircher’s Theory“, Journal of the American Oriental Society 72, n°1 (Jan. – Mar.,1952), pp. 21-29.

Paul Veyne, “Comment on écrit l’histoire”, Seuil, Paris 1971.

Manabu WAIDA, “Symbolism of Descent in Tibetan Sacred Kingship and Some East Asian Parallels”, Numen 20 (1973), p. 60-78.

Manabu WAIDA, “Notes on the Sacral Kingship in Central Asia”, Numen 23 (1976), p. 179-190.

Manabu WAIDA, “Kingship in East Asia”, EoR 1987 e EoR 2^nd ed. 2005, p. 5178-5181.

John E. WILLS Jr., Embassies and Illusions. Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hsi, 1666-1687, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. 1984.

Silas H. L. WU, “The Memorial System of the Ch‘ing Dynasty, 1644-1911”, HJAS 27 (1967), 7-75.

D. Encyclopaedias:

EoR 2005², Encyclopedia of Religion (a cura di Lindsay JONES), Ed. Macmillan, Detroit 2005², vol. 1-15.