Titles of the Themiclesian monarch
There are several titles of the Themiclesian monarch (號). Some of these titles may be combined, but others are specific to given functions and not properly used with others. The titles of the Monarchy of Themiclesia are not regulated by written law but governed by traditional usage.
Emperor
The title Emperor (皇啻, hwang-tai) was introduced to Themiclesia by Emperor Wŏn of Chŏllo, who fled to Themiclesia in the 6th century, ousted by Jin nomads from his home state. There, as a pretender in exile from Meng, he was enthroned as a figurehead by a group of courtiers plotting against their existing prince. There is a minor orthographic difference between the Menghean writing of this title and the Themiclesian one, the latter augmenting the second character with a symbol for "mouth". This is, in all probability, a determinative on account of the non-local origin of this word.
In the 6th through 12th centuries, the term "emperor" was formally written as "the lord emperor" (皇啻尹), possibly because the term "emperor" itself had no meaning in Shinasthana. The compound title "elder prince emperor" (大兄王皇啻) is also seen frequently. Starting around 1120, the variations on the title were systematically dropped in current and recopied texts. It has been noted that Menghean things were fashionable at the Themiclesian court during this time, likely owing to the Menghean Sunghwa dynasty's immense cultural prestige, and so dropping the suffixes made the title sound more Menghean.
The term hwang-tai was translated into Hallian as early as the 9th century and is rendered as "emperor" because Themiclesia at the time held suzerainty over many princes and chieftains of varying sizes.
It is not correct to read this title with Western pronunciation as ghwang-tiks, as this means "glowing successor" or something like it.
Elder Prince
Elder Prince (大兄伯 or 大兄王, lats-qmrangh-brak or lats-qmrangh-ghwang) is the customary title conferred to the pre-eminent prince by the princely assembly of medieval Themiclesia.
Deprecated titles
Grand Prince of Themiclesia
In the period when Themiclesia's ruler paid tribute to the Yi dynasty of Menghe, the Menghean ruler customarily called him "Grand Prince of Themiclesia" (震旦大王, Menghean: jin-dan-dae-wang), starting in 1388 when the first Menghean envoy reached Themiclesia. This title placed Themiclesia's ruler a rank above other tributaries of the Yi empire, who were usually called "prince" or by a lower title; technically, this title outranked a prince of the blood of the Yi imperial house, which is a dignity not granted to other tributary princes, but such a position was never utilized because Themiclesia's ruler never personally visited Menghe. Instead, his envoy was placed together with other envoys.
It is notable that in the first letters sent by the Themiclesian court, their sovereign lacked a title and was identified only by name (忒, qlek). On the one hand, such indicated humility in the cultures of both states and implicitly reconfirms the fact that Themiclesian emperor had agreed to cede the title to his Menghean counterpart two years earlier. On the other hand, since later in the letter he does send individuals with titles like "prince" and "baron" as his envoy, his own lack of title can still be regarded as a statement of his seniority over these titled individuals. Modern historians have described this as a highly-calculated silence, and indeed its aims certainly obtained—the Menghean ruler invented a title for him that is more senior and implicit confirmed his suzerainty over his part of the world.
The granting of this special title to Themiclesia's ruler could be considered with reference to Menghean literati's view that he was a legitimate successor of a legitimate Menghean emperor (albeit centuries earlier), which makes him different from other tributary princes who were relegated to the cultural status of barbarian. At the same time, the Themiclesian court also made abundantly clear that pacification of their dominion is one based on suzerainty, and chaos of the kind unsuitable to the ideals of the Yi empire was bound to ensue if Themiclesia's position was not somehow maintained.
Ordinal name
Early rulers of most Themiclesian states had names based on ten ordinals called Heavenly Stems, sometimes with one or two additional words. In Shinasthana, the Heavenly Stems in order are: kerap, qrut, prang, neting, met, keq, kerang, sin, num, qwiq. It is usually assumed the ordinal name was a reign name or posthumous/cultic name, as personal names must have otherwise existed; however, since rulers' personal names do not systematically survive, most of them are known to scholarship by their ordinal names.
In Tsinh, the behaviour of ordinal names is not conclusively described. From comparative evidence, it is surmised that a phrase like nis-neting "Neting II" (二丁) may stand for nis-tsa-neting "Ancestor Ting II" (二且丁). While all rulers had ordinal names, not every ruler (even with the monicker "ancestor" accounted for) with the same ordinal increments the number when next used. Additionally, rulers' spouses are also sometimes given ordinal names, which are not those of their regnant husbands and are interpreted as pertaining to themselves; at other times, the spouse was recorded only as the ruler's spouse, with no independent title, ordinal or otherwise.
The observation that rulers who have monickers do not cause the next user of the same title to have an incremented number leads to the notion that the numbering (noted as I, II, etc.) was added later and only to those rulers who did not already have a monicker. Therefore there is a question as to when these numbers were added, and there is as yet no consensus on this point.
The ordinal names of rulers is arguably the main entry point through which the early royal genealogy is studied, as it is believed to represent some sort of internal grouping practiced by Meng societies residing in Themiclesia. The significance may be political, ethnic, geographic, cultic, or professional, according to the opinions of various scholars, and this question lies at the very heart of early Themiclesian history. This system is sufficiently widespread and uniform in early Themiclesia so as to support its characterization as an original attribute of Meng culture; indeed, early Themiclesian clans had widely differing preferences in art, technology, and economy, but this practice of using the ten ordinals as part of one's identity unifies all the early cultures.
On the other hand, while an aesthetically or nominally similar system is recoverable from Menghean history, their similarities can be viewed as superficial or even spurious, as the patterns observed in their respective royal canons is, with close analysis, different. The historian Byi commented that "to say they are unrelated is impossible, and to say they are the same is equally impossible."
Fraternal title
During the same period in which the ordinal names were in use, one of three possible "fraternal names" were also applied to rulers, and these were "elder brother" (大兄), "middle brother" (中兄), and "younger brother" (小兄). The fraternal name is intimiately connected with ceremonial generations of cultic relevance, with the first two member of a cultic generation almost invariably called "elder brother" and "middle brother". Since the origin and meaning of the sacrametal generation remains uncertain, the meaning of the fraternal name is likewise difficult to establish.
Not all rulers had fraternal titles. Starting from about 1 CE, the last phase of the Archaic Period, the orderly use of the fraternal name based on cultic generations ceased. The title of "elder brother" was no longer used in cultic context but embedded into the public title "elder brother prince" (王大兄, ghwang-lats-qmrang), while "younger brother" altogether vanished.
Character words
There are a number of words that appear repeatedly in ordinal and fraternal titles given to rulers and which have attracted comment. Of these, the terms men and maq are most commonly applied but in ostensibly different ways.
- 文 (men) appears in both ordinal and fraternal titles. The character men shows a person frontally, bearing a marking on an enlarged chest, usually a heart or hatching; it seems this is connected with some sort of tattooing or body-painting, which in turn establishes a connection with mythological beasts, which are also depicted as having markings of this sort. In later Menghean culture, men means (concretely) writing or (conceptually) the opposite of military; however, this meaning is not reflected in archaic Themiclesian usage, where men seems best interpreted to suggest worship or glory.
- As an adjective outside of titles, men also appears in terms like 文人 men-ning "deified ancestors", 文辟 men-pik "deified lord/husband", 文尹 men-qur "deified lady/wife"; when men is used in this way, the common indication is that the person described has died. As such, it has been suggested that the word men is applied to rulers' ordinal and fraternal titles automatically, but this does not explain those rulers who did not receive the monicker.
- The first occurrence of men dates to the middle part of the Late Archaic, where a change in succession laws has occrred and father-son successions become dominant. The canonization of this succession law is accompanied by a change in ordinal and fraternal titles, in particular the character words applied to them. In the Early to Middle Archaic, most ordinal titles bear only a number or a neutral term (usually thought of as place names) and frateral titles completely unadorned; by the Late Archaic, terms of praise or eulogization become common and customary. men appears under this context and may represent an effort by successors to enhance the memory of their forefathers.
- 武 (maq) appears in both ordinal and fraternal titles. Unlike the difficulty of men, the meaning of maq is not disputed—the character shows a weapon above a footprint and uncontroversially means "fighting, war". This term appears consecutively during the Transitional Period and usually with an additional word before maq.
- If the word 王 ghwang "prince, king" is used, it is always preceded by maq.
When men and maq appear together, the sequence is invariably men-maq and never maq-men. Aside from phonological reasons, this most probably indicates that maq was added first to the ruler's title, possibly during his own lifetime. As sequences of words became established as names, the word men would only be added at a subsequent time, at the earliest after the ruler's death.