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A kowtow () is the act of deep respect shown by prostration, that is, kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground. In Sinospheric culture, the kowtow is the highest sign of reverence. It was widely used to show reverence for one's elders, superiors, and especially the Emperor of China, as well as for religious and cultural objects of worship.
As government officials represented the majesty of the Emperor while carrying out their duties, commoners were required to kowtow to them in formal situations. For example, a commoner brought before a local magistrate must kneel and kowtow. A commoner was required to remain kneeling, whereas a person who had earned a degree in the Imperial examinations was permitted a seat.
Since one is required by Confucianism to show great reverence to one's parents and grandparents, children may be required to kowtow to their elderly ancestors, particularly on special occasions. For example, at a wedding, the marrying couple was traditionally required to kowtow to both sets of parents, as acknowledgement of the debt owed for their nurturing.
Confucius believed there was a natural harmony between the body and mind and therefore, whatever actions were expressed through the body would be transferred over to the mind. Because the body is placed in a low position in the kowtow, the idea is that one will naturally convert to his or her mind a feeling of respect. What one does to oneself influences the mind. Confucian philosophy held that respect was important for a society, making bowing an important ritual.
The kowtow remains alive as part of a formal induction ceremony in certain traditional trades that involve apprenticeship or discipleship. For example, Chinese martial arts schools often require a student to kowtow to a master. Traditional performing arts often require the kowtow.
Some Buddhist pilgrimage would kowtow once for every three steps made during their long journeys, the number three referring to the Triple Gem of Buddhism, the Buddhahood, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Prostration is widely practiced in India by Hindus to give utmost respect to their deities in temples and to parents and elders. In modern times, people show regards to elders by bowing down and touching their feet. Prostration is also common among the Yoruba people in West Africa. Parents raised their male children to prostrate as a sign of respect and indication of good home training while the female children are trained to kneel to elders when greeting. Due to modernisation of some sort, it is not uncommon to see boys or men slightly bow their head to an older person rather than having to fully prostrate. Similarly, girls and women now slightly tilt their knees as a sign of respect, rather than having to fully kneel down all the time.
Dutch ambassador Isaac Titsingh did not refuse to kowtow during the course of his 1794–1795 mission to the imperial court of the Qianlong Emperor.van Braam Houckgeest, Andreas Everardus. (1798). An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India company, to the court of the emperor of China, in the years 1794 and 1795. . Vol. I (English edition). pp. 285 in original (p. 335 of pp. 339 in digitized format). The members of the Titsingh mission, including Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest and Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes, made every effort to conform with the demands of the complex Imperial court etiquette.
The Qing courts gave bitter feedback to the Afghanistan emir Ahmad Shah when its Afghan envoy, presenting four splendid horses to Qianlong in 1763, refused to perform the kowtow. This was likely a result of the Islamic prohibition on performing Sujud before any except God. Coming amid tense relations between the Qing and Durrani Empire empires, Chinese officials forbade the Afghans from sending envoys to Beijing in the future.
On two occasions, the kowtow was performed by Chinese envoys to a foreign ruler – specifically the Russian Tsar. T'o-Shih, Qing emissary to Russia whose mission to Moscow took place in 1731, kowtowed before Tsarina Anna, as per instructions by the Yongzheng Emperor, as did Desin, who led another mission the next year to the new Russian capital at St. Petersburg.Hsu, Immunel C.-Y. (1999), The Rise of Modern China, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 115–118. Hsu notes that the Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng's predecessor, explicitly ordered that Russia be given a special status in Qing foreign relations by not being included among tributary states, i.e. recognition as an implicit equal of China.
The kowtow was often performed in intra-Asian diplomatic relations as well. In 1636, after being defeated by the invading Manchus, King Injo of Joseon (Korea) was forced to surrender by kowtowing three times to pledge tributary status to the Qing Emperor, Hong Taiji. As was customary of all Asian envoys to Qing China, Joseon envoys kowtowed three times to the Qing emperor during their visits to China, continuing until 1896, when the Korean Empire withdrew its tributary status from Qing as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War.
The King of the Ryukyu Kingdom also had to kneel three times on the ground and touch his head nine times to the ground (三拜九叩頭禮), to show his allegiance to the Chinese emperors.
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