In Qing documents produced in Manchu during the Qianlong 乾隆 reign (1736–1795), two characteristics can be observed regarding the term ejen. The first is that it signifies the sovereign, i.e., the Qing emperor, and is very rarely used in its original sense as a common noun meaning “master” of various groups and social classes. Secondly, the word used to refer to the Qing emperor is primarily ejen, and it is used with overwhelming frequency when compared with han,¹ hūwangdi (transcription of Chinese huangdi 皇帝 “emperor”), and dergi (originally “above,” by extension “His Majesty”), which are also used to refer to the Qing emperor. In this brief essay, I undertake a basic inquiry into the historical circumstances and background that led to the establishment of a schema equating ejen with the Qing emperor.

The Manchu word ejen, a loanword from Mongolian, generally means “master.” In Mongol nomadic society after the Yuan period, ejen was used to refer to the heads of various groups, great and small (from the paterfamilias of a household to the sovereign of a state). This was also the case in Manchu society in the initial stages of the Qing dynasty. Ishibashi Hideo 石橋秀雄, tracing the change of a method of using ejen in the Old Manchu Chronicles (Jp. Manbun rōtō, Ch. Manwen laodang 滿文老檔), has pointed out that the referents of Manchu ejen were originally varied, and after the establishment of the eight banners it was also used in official titles such as gūsa i ejen (later dutong 都統, or “commander”), meiren i ejen (fu dutong 副都統, or “deputy commander”), jalan i ejen (canling 参領, or “regimental commander”), and niru i ejen (zuoling 佐領, or “company captain”). From the reign of Taizu 太祖 (Nurhaci, r. 1616–1626) to the early reign of Taizong 太宗 (Hong Taiji, r. 1626–1643), the Manchus used han² to refer to the sovereign, and ejen was rarely used in this sense. Even when it was used with this meaning, it appeared in general expressions such as gurun i/de ejen (“lord of/in the country”), and it was also used to the refer to the Mongol khans and the Ming emperor. However, in 1634, the word ejen in the above titles of officers of the eight banners was changed to janggin (Ch. zhangjing 章京) except in the case of the highest-ranking gūsa i ejen. Furthermore, from around the time of the founding of the Daicing gurun (or Great Qing Dynasty) in 1636, there begin to appear designations for the Qing emperor ending in ejen (e.g., han ejen). Thereafter, ejen came to be used as a designation for the Qing emperor alongside han and hūwangdi, the latter of which appeared around this time.³ However, ejen was still widely used in its general meaning of “master,” and its usage was not constrained by imperial authority.⁴

However, tracing changes after the founding of the Daicing gurun, the word ejen comes to refer to the Qing emperor even when not accompanied by han, and one can recognize a tendency for designations for the Qing emperor to converge on ejen.⁵ In the following section, I first wish to consider why the use of han came to be avoided.

In 1626, Nurhaci, who was known as Genggiyen han (“Brilliant Khan”), entered into an offensive and defensive alliance against the Chakhars with Ooba, leader of the Khorchins, and on this occasion he bestowed the title of Tušiyetu han on Ooba. This title was granted by Nurhaci to an ally of the same standing as himself and differed from the haṅ peerage in the subsequent peerage system for Outer Vassals. However, after Ooba’s death, Hong Taiji refused to allow his successor Badari to inherit the title of Tušiyetu han and instead granted him the title of Tušiyetu jinong. After the founding of the Daicing gurun in 1636, successive generations of the lineage of Ooba and Badari (Middle Banner of the Khorchin Right Wing) inherited the title of Tušiyetu cinwang. In the case of the Chakhars, too, in 1634, when Ligden Khan died and his son Ejei submitted to the Qing dynasty, he was granted a cinwang peerage. In other words, at the time of the founding of the Daicing gurun in 1636, the only person using the title han within Qing territory was Hong Taiji.⁶

However, if we turn our attention to the outer periphery of Qing territory, there existed several royal families possessing the traditional title of khan (Mo. qaγan, Tu/Pe. khān) of which the Qing was aware at the time of its seizure of Beijing in 1644. The three khans, namely Jasaghtu Khan, Tusiyetu Khan, and Chechen Khan, had mushroomed among the Khalkhas from the late sixteenth century to about 1630.⁷ Moreover, despite not belonging to the Chinggisid family, or Borjigin clan, tribal leaders emerged among the Oyirads who had khan titles such as the “khan of Tibet” of the Qinghai Khoshuds⁸ (lineage of Güüsi Khan and his eldest son). In Jungharia, Ochirtu, the eldest son of Baybaghas who was the elder brother of Güüsi Khan, was also bestowed the title of Čečen Qaγan by the fifth Dalai Lama in 1666. During this period, the title of khan had undergone rapid inflation in Inner Asia, as I will discuss further below.

For a time after the Manchu conquest of China proper, the Qing was not unduly concerned if foreign entities used the title of khan. In the case of the Khalkhas, when a khan died, a successor would be selected from among his sons, and this would be reported to the Qing emperor for his approval, but this was no more than a perfunctory procedure. In 1679, Galdan of the Junghars assumed the title of Bošuγtu Qaγan and sent an envoy to the Qing court. Although, on this occasion, the Court of Vassal Affairs (Lifanyuan 理藩院) expressed concern that there was no precedent for chieftains of the Khalkhas and Oyirads arbitrarily styling themselves han/qaγan and the Qing accepting tribute from them, the Kangxi 康煕 emperor did not regard it as a problem and received the envoy.⁹

However, around the time of the Khalkhas’ submission to the Qing dynasty, the Kangxi emperor began to become actively involved in inheritance of the title of khan among the Khalkhas. The first sign of this appeared in connection with succession to the position of Chechen Khan.¹⁰ When the Chechen Khan Norbu died of ill health in early 1687, the Kangxi emperor sent an imperial edict to the Tusiyetu Khan, Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, and Jasaghtu Khan and urged them to swiftly install Norbu’s eldest son Ildeng Arabtang Tayiji as khan.¹¹

Galdan interfered in these moves by the Qing. At the time, the Khalkha Left Wing, centered on Tusiyetu Khan, and the Khalkha Right Wing, centered on Jasaghtu Khan, were in conflict with each other. Galdan, who had finished unifying Jungharia, intervened in this conflict among the Khalkhas, strengthening ties with the Right Wing, and in 1688 he advanced into Khalkha lands at the head of more than thirty thousand troops.

The Khalkha princes fled to Southern Mongolia, which was already under Qing rule, and swore allegiance to the Kangxi emperor, whereupon there arose the question of whether or not to recognize the continuing use of the title of han/qaγan by the three khan families. The first of the three khan families to have its use of the title of han/qaγan recognized by the emperor was Chechen Khan. In early 1687, Chechen Khan Norbu died and his eldest son Ildeng Arabtang succeeded to the position of khan; however, he also died of illness before long.¹² Immediately afterwards, the family of the Chechen Khan submitted to the Qing dynasty as a result of Galdan’s invasion. Although Ildeng Arabtang’s son Umehei was still an infant, according to Qing sources, in early 1689 Ildeng Arabtang’s wife had an audience with the Kangxi emperor together with Umehei and requested that her son should be allowed to inherit the khanship, and the emperor gave his consent.¹³ However, an account of this incident,¹⁴ using the memoirs of Jean-François Gerbillon (1654–1707) serving in the Qing court as an information source, differs somewhat from Qing records.

It is thus evident that at the time the word han referred within Qing territory to the Qing emperor, and that the existence of the three khan families of the Khalkhas, who had newly submitted to the Qing, clashed with this general principle. In the end, the Kangxi emperor abolished the Khalkha princes’ existing titles such as jinong and noyan at a meeting for an alliance at Doloon Noor and bestowed in their place Qing peerages such as cinwang, junwang, and so on. However, he sanctioned the continuing use of the title of khan by the families of Tusiyetu Khan and Chechen Khan.¹⁶ The haṅ peerage was thus added anew to the Qing peerage system for Outer Vassals, and as a result there now existed within Qing territory han apart from the Qing emperor.

In light of the above, the submission of the three khan families of the Khalkhas may be given as a reason for the avoidance of the use of han to refer to the Qing emperor in Manchu sources. That is to say, whereas until then the emperor had been the sole han within Qing territory, the creation of a haṅ peerage for the Khalkhas led to a situation in which the sovereign and his subjects had the same title. It is to be surmised that consequently the use of han to refer to the Qing emperor gradually came to be avoided in Manchu texts, as a result of which ejen, which was already being used alongside han to refer to the Qing emperor, came to be used instead.

To corroborate this view, in Mongolian documents addressed to the Qing court by Khalkha princes prior to their submission to the Qing, both qaγan and eǰen (translated without exception as han and ejen in Manchu) were used to refer to the Kangxi emperor, but in memorials submitted after 1689, when Umehei’s inheritance of the title of khan was sanctioned, “ejen” (Ma. ejen; Mo. eǰen) is almost invariably used.¹⁷ Furthermore, in Mongolian and Manchu memorials from the Oyirads and Tibet, which lay outside Qing territory at the time, both “khan” (han/qaγan) and “ejen” continued to be used for a time. For example, to refer to the Qing emperor, “khan” had been originally used in memorials from Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas.¹⁸ As the end of the Kangxi reign drew near, there was a tendency for usage to converge on “ejen” in the main text of memorials.¹⁹ Moreover, after Tibet was put under Qing control in 1720 (KX 59), memorials previously addressed to “Manjusiri khan” were changed to address “Manjusiri ejen.”²⁰

In addition, in 1723, when the Yongzheng emperor ascended the throne, the words gūsa i ejen on the commander’s official seal were altered to gūsa i amban (properly, gūsa be kadalara amban) on the grounds that “the two characters e-zhen (< ejen) pertain to great sublimity and should not be used improperly by subjects” 額真二字, 所關甚鉅, 非臣下所可濫用.²¹ By this time, the Manchu word ejen was no longer a word that subjects could use, and it had become established as a term referring to the Qing emperor.²²

Meanwhile, the word han changed into a peerage bestowed on subjects by the Qing emperor, and the Qing court began to show its disapproval of the title khan used by chieftains outside its territory.²³ As relations between the Qing and Tibet deteriorated after the end of the war with Galdan, the Qing court began to ignore the conferral of the title of khan on Mongol and Oyirad chieftains by the Dalai Lama and to intervene in such moves.²⁴

The Qing formed relationships with Central Asian forces during the western campaigns in the mid-eighteenth century. At that time, a tendency of the inflation of the khan title was also seen in Central Asia. With the death of Tauke Khan in 1715 or 1718, the Kazakh khanate, an offshoot of the Ulus of Jochi, was divided into three groups: Junior Juz, Middle Juz, and Senior Juz; each juz had one or two khans. In 1757, the Qing dispatched the Nusan mission to negotiate directly with Ablay, a leader of the Kazakh Middle Juz. In the stage, they held a debate on the bestowal of peerages by the Qing emperor, and then the hanṅ peerage was bestowed on Ablay even though he was outside the Qing territory. Afterward, the Qing peerage was effective in enhancing the authority of his influence within the Kazakh society.²⁵

On the other hand, there even arose instances in which, for example, the Qing emperor reprimanded Irdana, the non-Chinggisid ruler of the Khoqand khanate lying outside Qing territory, for using the title of khān without the emperor’s permission and forbade him from using it.²⁶ In 1783, there arrived an envoy of Ablay Sultan, son of Nurali (Nūr ‘Alī) Khan of the Kazakh Junior Juz, referred to by the Qing court as the “Western Kazakhs” (Ma. wargi hasak, Ch. xi hasake 西哈薩克). The contents of the edict issued by the Qianlong emperor on this occasion are intriguing:

The haṅ title of the Western Kazakh Nurali is that which the Kazakhs of his pastureland have called him of their own accord and was not imperially bestowed [by me]. Therefore, if we refer to him as haṅ, it will be contrary to reason. Recently, because Wali Sultan, the son of Ablay, asked me to bestow [the title], I did a favor to bestow haṅ and gifts on him and issued him an Imperial edict; therefore, we are finally able to call him haṅ. Inform [the Military Governor of Ili] Iletu of this, and, hereafter, even if the Western Kazakh Nurali calls himself haṅ in his letter for some reason, we should not meddle in the matter; however, in the reply [to him], call him only by his name Nurali. If he sends a letter with a sincere desire to receive [the haṅ peerage], I will bestow a favor on him; then, we should refer to him anew as haṅ. We should send a letter [to the frontier administrators] to inform them that the Imperial edict addressed to Nurali on this occasion, which will be taken back by the envoy Kharatokho, calls him only by his name Nurali.

wargi hasak nurali i haṅ i colo oci, ini nuktei hasak se, ini cisui hūlahangge umai hesei fungnehengge waka be dahame, aika imbe haṅ seme araci, giyan de acanarakū. Te bici, hasak abulai i jui wali sultan fungnere be baiha turgunde, bi kesi isibume, haṅ fungnefi jaka hacin šangname, hesei bithe wasimbuha ofi, teni imbe haṅ seme araci ombi. Erebe iletu de jasifi, ereci julesi wargi hasak nurali, yaya baitai jalin, alibuha bithede, i beye haṅ seme araci, inu dara ba akū, karu afabure bithede damu gebu be jorime nurali seme arakini. I unenggi fungnere be baime bitehe alibuci, bi kesi isibume fungnehe manggi, jai imbe han· seme arakini. Ere mudan elcin haratoho marifi nurali de wasimbuha hesei bithede, damu nurali seme araha babe suwaliyame jasifi, sakini.²⁷

After Ablay, the hanṅ peerage holder, passed away in 1780, the succession of haṅ by his eldest son, Wali, was admitted by the Qing. By contrast, the Qing avoided referring to Nurali as hanṅ, since the hanṅ peerage had not been bestow upon him even though he was a khān. There exists a draft of the Turkic edict issued on this occasion, and in fact it has only “the Western Kazakh Nur ‘Ali” (Tu. Maghrīb Qazāq Nūr ‘Alī) and khān is not used.²⁸ This example clearly illustrates the significance of the title of khan at the Qing court at the time.

On the other hand, in Turkic letters sent to the Qing court by Central Asian rulers, there are examples of the use of khān or ulugh khān to refer to the Qing emperor.²⁹ However, in the corresponding Manchu translations these terms are translated as ejen in the majority of cases, and even when they are translated as han, han is rarely used alone and they are often translated as ejen han. In addition, Liaoning Provincial Museum holds a trilingual imperial decree in Manchu, Oyirad (Todo script), and Turkic (Arabic script) that was drafted in 1788 to be sent to Narbuta Bi (r. 1768/69–98/99), ruler of the Khoqand khanate.³⁰ The Manchu text begins with the words “Decree of the emperor holding the course of time by order of Heaven” (Ma. abkai hesei forgon be aliha hūwangdi i hese), corresponding to the standard phrase (Ch. fengtian chengyun huangdi yu 奉天承運皇帝諭) used in Chinese decrees. However, the corresponding passage in the Turkic texts reads “Decree of the emperor holding the [course of] time by order of God” (Tu. ḫudāning farmāni bilä waqt-zamānni igälägän pādšāhning yarliği), and khān is not used.³¹ It would seem that in its correspondence with Central Asia, too, the Qing court was avoiding the use of han to refer to the Qing emperor.³²

In the above, I have clarified the circumstances in which the word ejen came to be used almost exclusively as the Manchu term for referring to the Qing emperor. The main reasons for this were the submission to the Qing dynasty by the three khan families of the Khalkhas in the late seventeenth century and the creation of the hanṅ peerage for them. The resultant problematic situation of both the sovereign and his subjects having the same title of han led to the avoidance of the use of han to refer to the Qing emperor and reinforced the tendency to use only ejen.

Viewed in broader perspective, this could be described as a measure taken in response to the inflation of the title of khan that advanced throughout Eurasia in the post-Mongol period. At the incipient period of Qing dynasty, Manchus had used han, which is also a loanword from Mongolian, to refer to the Qing emperor. However, as the Qing expanded its territory to Inner Asia, the Qing emperors were faced with such an inflationary tendency. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in order to show their absolute authority, it was not enough for the Qing emperors just to call themselves han.