Chapter KOHINOR to KOTOW of K by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

to the distance at which the kornish is to be performed, he knelt nine times. …”—Baber, 106.

c. 1590.—The kornish under Akbar had been greatly modified:

“His Majesty has commanded the palm of the right hand to be placed upon the forehead, and the head to be bent downwards. This mode of salutation, in the language of the present age, is called Kornish.”—Ain, ed. Blochmann, i. 158.

But for his position as the head of religion, in his new faith he permitted, or claimed prostration (sijda) before him:

“As some perverse and dark-minded men look upon prostration as blasphemous manworship, His Majesty, from practical wisdom, has ordered it to be discontinued by the ignorant, and remitted it to all ranks. … However, in the private assembly, when any of those are in waiting, upon whom the star of good fortune shines, and they receive the order of seating themselves, they certainly perform the prostration of gratitude by bowing down their foreheads to the earth.”—Ibid. p. 159.

[1615.—“… Whereatt some officers called me to size-da (sij-dah), but the King answered no, no, in Persian.”—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 244; and see ii. 296.]

1618.—“The King (Shah ’Abbas) halted and looked at the Sultan, the latter on both knees, as is their fashion, near him, and advanced his right foot towards him to be kissed. The Sultan having kissed it, and touched it with his forehead … made a circuit round the king, passing behind him, and making way for his companions to do the like. This done the Sultan came and kissed a second time, as did the other, and this they did three times.”—P. della Valle, i. 646.

[c. 1686.—“Job (Charnock) made a salam Koornis, or low obeisance, every second step he advanced.”—Orme, Fragments, quoted in Yule, Hedges’ Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. xcvii.]

1816.—“Lord Amherst put into my hands … a translation … by Mr. Morrison of a document received at Tongchow with some others from Chang, containing an official description of the ceremonies to be observed at the public audience of the Embassador. … The Embassador was then to have been conducted by the Mandarins to the level area, where kneeling … he was next to have been conducted to the lower end of the hall, where facing the upper part … he was to have performed the ko- tou with 9 prostrations; afterwards he was to have been led out of the hall, and having prostrated himself once behind the row of Mandarins, he was to have been allowed to sit down; he was further to have prostrated himself with the attendant Princes and Mandarins when the Emperor drank. Two other prostrations were to have been made, the first when the milk-tea was presented to him, and the other when he had finished drinking.”—Ellis’s Journal of (Lord Amherst’s) Embassy to China, 213–214.

1824.—“The first ambassador, with all his following, shall then perform the ceremonial of the three kneelings and the nine prostrations; they shall then rise and be led away in proper order.”—Ceremonial observed at the Court of Peking for the Reception of Ambassadors, ed. 1824, in Pauthier, 192.

1855.—“… The spectacle of one after another of the aristocracy of nature making the kotow to the aristocracy of the accident.”—H. Martineau, Autobiog. ii. 377.

1860.—“Some Seiks, and a private in the Buffs having remained behind with the grog-carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next morning they were brought before the authorities, and commanded to perform the kotou. The Seiks obeyed; but Moyse, the English soldier, declaring that he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, was immediately knocked upon the head, and his body thrown upon a dunghill” (see China Correspondent of the Times). This passage prefaces some noble lines by Sir F. Doyle, ending:

“Vain mightiest fleets, of iron framed;
Vain those all-shattering guns;
Unless proud England keep, untamed,
The strong heart of her sons.
So let his name through Europe ring—
A man of mean estate,
Who died, as firm as Sparta’s king,
Because his soul was great.”.

Macmillan’s Mag. iii. 130.

1876.—“Nebba more kowtow big people.”—Leland, 46.

1879.—“We know that John Bull adores a lord, but a man of Major L’Estrange’s social standing would scarcely kowtow to every shabby little title to be found in stuffy little rooms in Mayfair.”—Sat. Review, April 19, p. 505.

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