Seals in the Sinosphere
In the Sinosphere, seals can be applied on objects to establish personal identification. They are commonly applied on items such as personal documents, office paperwork, contracts, and art. They are used similarly to signatures in the West. Unlike in the West, where wax seals are common, Sinosphere seals are used with ink.
Of Chinese origin, the process soon spread beyond China and across East and Southeast Asia. Various countries in these regions currently use a mixture of seals and hand signatures, and, increasingly, electronic signatures.
Chinese seals are typically made of stone, sometimes of metals, wood, bamboo, plastic, or ivory, and are typically used with red ink or cinnabar paste. The word 印 specifically refers to the imprint created by the seal, as well as appearing in combination with other morphemes in words related to any printing, as in the word "印刷", "printing", pronounced "yìnshuā" in Mandarin, "insatsu" in Japanese. In the western world, Asian seals were traditionally known by traders as chop marks or simply chops, a term adapted from the Hindi chapa and the Malay cap, meaning stamp or rubber stamps.
In Japan, seals, referred to as inkan or hanko, have historically been used to identify individuals involved in government and trading from ancient times. The Japanese emperors, shōguns, and samurai had their personal seals pressed onto edicts and other public documents to show authenticity and authority. Even today, Japanese citizens' companies regularly use name seals for the signing of a contract and other important paperwork.
History
Origin legends and early history
Throughout Chinese history, seals have played an important part and are known to have been used both by government authorities and private individuals for thousands of years. The earliest known examples of seals in ancient China date to the Shang dynasty and were discovered at archaeological sites at Anyang. However, how these ancient seals were used remains to be uncovered as it is only starting from the Spring and Autumn period of the Zhou dynasty that there is an increase in the quantity of Chinese seals paired together with textual references to them. Until the end of the Warring States period, all seals were only known as xǐ 璽 p=Xǐ, regardless if they were used by government officials or in private use and regardless of any material used to make them.During the Han dynasty, an origin myth of the supposed first seal in Chinese history was recorded, this myth states that the first seal was given to the Yellow Emperor by a yellow dragon which had a chart on its back. According to another origin myth, the first seal was given to Emperor Yao by a fenghuang as he was sitting in a boat. In both of these origin legends, the gifting of the seal is a symbol that the Mandate of Heaven was conferred to its recipient. So when Tang, the first ruler of the Shang dynasty, overthrows the last tyrannical ruler of the Xia dynasty, he seizes the royal seal from him to symbolically establish his power.
Imperial China
During China's Imperial Period, the term xǐ gradually began to become a designation exclusively reserved for the seals of the Emperors. During the Han dynasty, the Emperor of China only had 6 imperial seals, later during the Tang dynasty this number had grown to 8, during the Ming dynasty this number grew further to over a dozen imperial seals, and by the reign of the Qing dynasty, there were several dozen official imperial seals that were used by its Emperors. The inscriptions on these official imperial seals usually refer to either the Emperor receiving the Mandate of Heaven or to the Emperor being "the successor of Heaven".According to The New Book of Tang, Empress Wu Zetian issued a decree that changed the usage of the word xǐ, which was up until then used for imperial seals, to Bǎo ''treasure. Her reasoning behind this change was that she thought that the word xǐ sounded too much like death Si or rest Xi. But when Emperor Zhongzong was resumed to the throne of the Tang dynasty in the year 705, he changed the name for imperial seals back to xǐ. In subsequent centuries both the terms xǐ and bǎo were alternated, depending on the period.
During the reign of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty the main imperial seal bore the inscription Yu qian zhi bao "Seal in front of the Emperor", written in folded seal script and was found on the edicts of the Yuan emperors that have been preserved in Tibet. During the reign of the second Yuan emperor, Temür Khan, the Mongols claimed to have acquired the Seal Transmitting the State. They used it as a sign of their legitimacy; it continued to be used during the Northern Yuan dynasty period. During this period, a new so-called Seal Transmitting the State emerged. However, this new seal was not the original one produced during the Qin dynasty, but a later-made seal created during the reign of Northern Yuan khagan Ligdan Khan during the early 17th century. The Mongols at the time knew that the Yuan dynasty emperors had a Chinese seal known at the Seal Transmitting the State which they used to promote their legitimacy but were not in possession of the real seal, so Ligdan Khan created a new "Seal Transmitting the State" modelled on the seals used by the Ming dynasty as a symbol of political legitimacy.
During the reign of Hong Taiji, the Jurchen-led Later Jin dynasty claimed to have acquired the Seal Transmitting the State from the Chahar Mongols; with this acquisition, the Jurchens claimed to have also acquired the mandate of heaven, but the imperial seal used by the Jurchens to stamp all their imperial documents bore the inscription Zhi gao zhi bao'' "Seal of Edict", which was written in a type of seal script used by the Ming dynasty. The Qing dynasty continued to perpetuate this myth to legitimise their rule over China.
Another type of seal that was used by the Chinese Emperors was a seal to indicate that a certain text or official document was written in the Emperor's own handwriting as opposed to written by someone ordered to do so by the Emperor. In the case of the Qing dynasty period Qianlong Emperor, who was known for his literary ambitions, including his ability to write in well-renowned calligraphy, had produced a large amount of texts which were affixed with the seal to indicate that they were his own writing. When the calligraphy of the Qianlong Emperor was carved into stone steles, the print of the seal was also copied onto the stone surface.
Engraving types
- Zhuwen seals imprint the Chinese characters in red ink, sometimes referred to as yang seals.
- Baiwen seals imprint the background in red, leaving white characters, sometimes referred to as yin seals.
- Zhubaiwen Xiangjianyin seals use zhuwen and baiwen together
Government authorities
National government
The Chinese emperors, their families and officials used large seals known as xǐ, later renamed bǎo, which corresponds to the great seals of Western countries. These were usually made of jade, and were originally square in shape. They were changed to a rectangular form during the Song dynasty, but reverted to square during the Qing dynasty.The most important of these seals was the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, which was created by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and was seen as a legitimising device embodying or symbolising the Mandate of Heaven. The Heirloom Seal was passed down through several dynasties, but had been lost by the beginning of the Ming dynasty. This partly explains the Qing emperors' obsession with creating numerous imperial seals - for the emperors' official use alone the Forbidden City in Beijing has a collection of 25 seals - in order to reduce the significance of the Heirloom Seal.
The authority of the government was often tied to their possession of certain seals. For example, when the Later Jin khanate proclaimed the Qing Empire, they only did so after receiving the jade seal from the Mongols. Likewise, the Northern Yuan before them claimed their legitimacy through their national seals as well.
These seals typically bore the titles of the offices, rather than the names of the owners. Different seals could be used for different purposes: for example, the Qianlong Emperor had a number of informal appreciation seals used on select paintings in his collection.
The most popular style of script for government seals in the imperial eras of China was the nine-fold seal script, a highly stylised script which is unreadable to the untrained.
During its 143 years of existence, the government of the Nguyễn dynasty created more than 100 imperial seals. According to Dr. Phan Thanh Hải, Director of the Huế Monuments Conservation Centre, at the end of the Nguyễn dynasty period the Purple Forbidden City in Huế contained a total of 93 jade and gold seals of which 2 seals were from the Nguyễn lords period.
The government of the Republic of China in Taiwan has continued to use traditional square seals of up to about 13 centimetres, known by a variety of names depending on the user's hierarchy. Part of the inaugural ceremony for the President of the Republic of China includes bestowing on them the Seal of the Republic of China and the Seal of Honor.
In China, the Seal of the People's Government of the People's Republic of China was a square bronze seal with side length of 9 centimetres. Its inscription reads "Seal of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China". Notably, the seal uses the relatively modern Song typeface rather than the more ancient seal scripts, and the seal is called a yìn, not a xǐ. Government seals in the People's Republic of China today are usually circular in shape, and have a five-pointed star in the centre of the circle. The name of the governmental institution is arranged around the star in a semicircle - a form also adopted by some company chops.