is there a difference between king and emperor?

However, in Japan they also refer to their leader as emperor.

The heavenly emperor to be exact.

Because the Japanese Shindo says emperors are gods on earth....

Eventhough for the longest time the Japanese emperors were little more than the shogan's puppets.

In the western world, there were also emperors.  Emperors of the Roman empire for example.  Why at the time and after the romans no one in the west called themselves emperors?  (well... they called themselves Cesar...)  Because they don't rule large enough land i suppose.

In the eastern world, at least in China, this is what happens.  The first emperor as we know started with Qing Shi Huang.  But even before that, the leader of the dynasty, for example the Zhou, will give kingship to his relatives or people contributed to the dynasty's founding.  These kingdoms grow more powerful over the years, and resulted in the warring period.

So after Qing Shi Huang declared himself emperor, he did away with this kingship giving deal.  However, Han's first emperor Liu, Bang revived the kingship.  He first gave lands and titles to people who served him, then it led to some uprises.  So he killed most of the people that helped him gain the empire, and gave the kingship to his relatives.

Then these relatives revolted at Liu, Bang's son.  Called the 8 kings revolt.  When these is all settled, the dynasties after Han rarely give actual land with the title of kingship, unless they have reasons to.  For example the Qing dynasties gave the 3 Han Chinese who helped them conqured Ming land in the south.  That also ended in revolt years later, and they were all killed.

So for most of the time, kings within the system of the Chinese political system are just royalties with no real power.  Then the emperor grants foreign rulers right to call themselves kings.  This is normally just bull, but sometimes if there is a political struggle in lets say Mongolia, getting the emperor of China to recognize your claim to the title can sometimes gain material or military support.

In that sense, China has granted kingship to both Japanese leader and Corean leaders many times in the history.  However, if ever any leader declares themselves emperors, then China will definately invade that place.  With the exception of Japan.

it has nothing to do with size or prestige..

Japanese emperors of early times ruled the land size of Cuba..

the Korean emperor of 1897-1910 was not very prestigeous at all..

it's just a title you can set for yourself if you want, and if you don't feel like it, you don't have to call yourself that..

Koguryo in 400's saw itself as the ruler of Koguryo, Baekje, Silla, East Buyo, and Suksin, which means the Koguryo king ruled many kings so he should count as emperor but his title was Tae-wang which literally means "great king".. no diff

Hey all,

    Ah, semantics.  I love to hate these.

    What truly begs the question is how on earth do a kingdom and empire differ?  (Anyone about to answer that a kingdom is run by a king and an empire is run by an emperor, please leave the room right now before I smack you =) )

    I would say, regardless of their definitions, we shake ourselves free of the Western lens.  There are only "Di," "Wang, "Gan," "Khan" for the East Asians, no kings nor emperors.  May be it's time that we stop trying to define ourselves with Western categories.  They are not merely same meaning expressed in different languages: there's still a level of dissimilarity between the Christian monarch of a global colonial empire and the Son of Heaven.  Taking features that they share and declaring that they are the same thing in different lanuages while ignoring all the other differing features as useful tools for definitions is arbitrary.

Peace,

Michael

9-30-2004

Hey Hansioux,

    "But it doesn't effect discussing the difference between Asian Emperor (Huang Di) and King (Wang)."

     Actually I beg to differ.  I think we are mistakenly overrating our ability to translate.  Sometimes I prefer the Korean method: I'll say the key words in Korean and I don't give a crap if you don't understand it.  The cliche that meanings are lost with translation is painfully true.  I've discussed very much about Confucian classics with English speakers and I often feel very unsatisfied with talking about the English translation.  There are certain things not translatable.

    Besides, if "emperor" and "king" were never applied to the East Asian culture, how can they be relevant at all?  I mean, we can discuss why the West call the Chinese one "emperor" and the Korean one "king," is there a specific reason for that.  But we can't pretend that "yes, the Chinese had an emperor, the Korean had a king."  No, the Chinese had a Di, the Koreanshad a Gan.

Peace,

Michael

9-30-2004

Hey Hansioux,

    Yes, that we can do.  What I'm referring to is something like the second post of this thread: an emperor runs an empire and a king runs a kingdom.  Besides stating what's obvious, even if we're to explore the deeper meanings of "empire" and "kingdom" won't really help us understand Di and Gan.

Peace,

Michael

9-30-2004

Gan- the traditional korean word for Emperor , used in Baedal and maybe in Choson (search for my relating koreans with other civ thing for an example)

and Emperor owns more than 1 country, while king owns 1, it depends on interpretations to call someone an emperor, but Qing and Rome had emperors for sure.  As well as spain when it conquered the aztecs

And Japan calls its leader Tenno, or Emperor of heaven, because it's just the nature of people living in island to have an absolutist ruler that decides everything because if not, they would just fight, and since they cannot escape(they R surrounded by water) they all die out.  ---It's a hard logic, but I think there are books mentioning the common pattern of Island people having absolutist rulers, Japan being a good example of it.

Even that's not true from a european perspective you could rule several kingdoms but still be called a king. For instance Ferdinan and Isabella of spain who completed the re-conquesta in 1492 were king and queen of about 15 theoretically seperate small kingdoms, but were refered to as Aragon and Castile in the spainish penninsula as well as they were king and queen of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples. In east asia the kings of Thialnad at one point ruled over Laos, Cambodia, the Malay states, in addition to Thailand proper but there title was king not emperor. Also the assyrians ruled an empire but there leaders were called kings.

The difference between a king and an emperor was the pretention to universal rule. That is the god (or gods) given right to rule the world as the people using the title could define the world, ie the part they knew of. As well as being demi-gods just by acending to the imperial title.

In other words when Qin shi Huang made him self the august emperor in 221 BC he made himself into a semi devine personage. That he had been given the mandate of the heaven (or the sky) to rule all of the chinese kingdoms as their supremem ruler. Augustus Caesar did the a similar thing he declared himself the Imperator which is latin for commander in 27 BC he was the diefied ruler (he had declared himself a god or demi-god) and protector of rome. Augustus took titles like consol (leader of the roman government), pontificus maximus (supreme priest of the state religion), and was supreme commander of the legions. The definition of a ruler as emperor in the east and west decendes from these 2 templates.

But in euorpe the title of emperor evolved a little more than in china. This change happened in the middle ages when Charlemagne was made the new emperor in the west in 800. You were only a true emperor in europe if you a)were crowned by the pope (who to this day uses the old roman title pontificus maximus) and b)protected rome. The idea behind this is that the pope being the closest thing to Jesus on earth (in theory) had the right to make an emperor. So Charlemagne a frank was made emperor and was founder of the holy roman empire that lasted until 1806. When Napoleon was crowned emperor of the french in 1804 he took a laurel crown from the pope and crowned himself. He also took over the papal state of rome and "protected" it from attack. Napoleon III, who also used the title emperor, protected the papal state of rome from the kingdom of italy in the 1860's

It sounds a lot like it because it is Khan.  You can call it Khan, Gan, or Han anyway you like.  Alteic langauge family is extremely easy to "shift tones". 

Just like Wong, Ong, Wang, Wan anyway people call it, it's all has the same origin.