The king represents the masculine principle, sovereignty, temporal power, the supreme ruler, and is equated with the Creator God and the Sun. “In many traditions it was held that the vitality of the king reflected, or was responsible for, the vitality of the people and the fertility of the land, hence the sacrifice of the king, or, later, his scapegoat, when his vitality waned“ (Cooper, pg. 91).
Rê
Biedermann states that “Within his kingdom he embodies the divine order of the cosmos, parallel to the sun in the heavens. Thus the Pharaoh is the earthly counterpart of Rê; the Inca…of the sun god Ynti. The successor in the ideological tradition is the adulation of the rulers of Rome in the period following the deification of Julius Caesar, and the ensuing creation of the title emperor. The common basis for all such belief is the desire for an embodiment of authority that will guarantee the welfare of the people” (pg. 196).
Early rulers, or priest kings, we believed to be descendants or reincarnations of divinities. “A king’s word was law by divine right; he could do no wrong; his judgment was infallible and above the law; his promises were irrevocable“ (Jobes, pg. 928). Jobes also states “A dead king was looked upon as a celestial benefactor of the people“ and “from the Anglo-Saxon cyng (tribe)…is allied to khan and may also be a corruption of saint”.
The King is symbolized by a castle, crown, eagle, lion, orb, scepter, sword, and throne and, in Egypt, by a male sphinx. The king’s color and metal is solar gold. In the Tarot deck, the king symbolizes the father, spirit, and essential self in man.
According to Jobes, in “Egyptian antiquity the king walked around the walls of a temple in a ceremony intended to keep the sun on its course and assist it in moving across the sky. In Japan, the king or emperor is the Son of the sun“. Jobes states, “The Israelites had no king before Saul, having first been governed by elders as in Egypt; then by rulers appointed by God, as Moses and Joshua; then by judges, as Ehud, Gideon, and Samuel”. Kings were anointed by prophets or high priests, given a crown and scepter, thus being both a temporal and sacred leader much like the Tibetan Dalai and Tashi Lamas”.
Read more at: https://www.shorthistory.org/ancient-civilizations/ancient-china/the-zhou-dynasty-of-ancient-china-1050-256-bc/
King Wu of Zhou by painter MaLin 13th century AD
Read more at: https://www.shorthistory.org/ancient-civilizations/ancient-china/the-zhou-dynasty-of-ancient-china-1050-256-bc/
In Chinese tradition the supreme leader of the Zhou dynasty was called wang. This term was later applied to rulers of the feudal states and then to princes in general. Currently “Great King” is used for anyone with a specialized skill. “Among the Hakka, a non-Han minority in South China, ‘King’ is a metaphor for fish” (Eberhard, pg. 155). The attributes of Chinese Emperors were the arrow and the throne.
For references see Bibliography post.