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Patterns varied across the centuries, at the whim of the Chinese Emperor, but always prominently featured dragons, often directly on front, back, and sleeves, with more dragons on the skirt. The robes worn by the Chinese Emperor himself bore dragons with five claws on each hand; only the King of Ryûkyû was permitted the same, while all other royals and officials who wore dragon robes (e.g. the king of Korea) were restricted to dragons with four or three talons. The designs on the robe generally represented a celestial map, with images representative of earth and sea at the bottom, and clouds and the heavens towards the top, with a variety of [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], [[Taoism|Taoist]] and other symbols scattered across the composition. In the early Ming, kings of Ryûkyû were also bestowed robes appropriate to a Ming official of the second rank, with a [[qilin]] design, combined with leather hat, jade tablet, and rhinoceros hide girdle. However, in later times, the kings were granted both regular everyday court costume (C: ''chángfú'', J: ''jôfuku'') and formal costume for state ceremonies (C: ''pí biàn fú'', J: ''hibenfuku'') of the rank of Imperial Prince.<ref>Ta-Tuan Ch’en, “Sino–Liu-Ch'iuan Relations in the Nineteenth Century,” PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1963, 70-71.</ref>
Patterns varied across the centuries, at the whim of the Chinese Emperor, but always prominently featured dragons, often directly on front, back, and sleeves, with more dragons on the skirt. The robes worn by the Chinese Emperor himself bore dragons with five claws on each hand; only the King of Ryûkyû was permitted the same, while all other royals and officials who wore dragon robes (e.g. the king of Korea) were restricted to dragons with four or three talons. The designs on the robe generally represented a celestial map, with images representative of earth and sea at the bottom, and clouds and the heavens towards the top, with a variety of [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], [[Taoism|Taoist]] and other symbols scattered across the composition. In the early Ming, kings of Ryûkyû were also bestowed robes appropriate to a Ming official of the second rank, with a [[qilin]] design, combined with leather hat, jade tablet, and rhinoceros hide girdle. However, in later times, the kings were granted both regular everyday court costume (C: ''chángfú'', J: ''jôfuku'') and formal costume for state ceremonies (C: ''pí biàn fú'', J: ''hibenfuku'') of the rank of Imperial Prince.<ref>Ta-Tuan Ch’en, “Sino–Liu-Ch'iuan Relations in the Nineteenth Century,” PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1963, 70-71.</ref>
The kings of Ryûkyû were granted two robes as part of their formal investiture costume, along with a [[Ryukyu investiture crown|silken crown]], belt, and other accoutrements. One was a plain, unfigured, red robe. The other, known as a "five symbol robe," featured designs of grains of millet, water weed, a wine cup, sacrificial axes, and an abstract symbol known as ''fu'', symbolizing both good and evil. These were five of the twelve symbols ornamenting robes worn by the Emperor of China. The other seven were the sun, moon, Big Dipper, mountains, dragon, pheasant, and fire. Crown princes of the Ming and Qing dynasties were permitted to wear nine symbols, as were the kings of Joseon and the [[Muromachi shogunate|Muromachi shoguns]] (recognized as "king of Japan"). This paralleled somewhat the design of crowns used or bestowed by the Ming: the Ming Emperor wore a crown with twelve rows of jewels, his princes crowns with nine rows, and the kings of Ryûkyû and Korea crowns with seven rows.<ref>Akamine Mamoru, Lina Terrell (trans.), Robert Huey (ed.), ''The Ryukyu Kingdom: Cornerstone of East Asia'', University of Hawaii Press (2017), 128.</ref>
Chinese records of robes given to other countries are almost completely non-existent; some vague references in Ryukyuan records seem to indicate that Ryûkyû may have first received dragon robes in [[1442]].<ref name=cammann/>
Chinese records of robes given to other countries are almost completely non-existent; some vague references in Ryukyuan records seem to indicate that Ryûkyû may have first received dragon robes in [[1442]].<ref name=cammann/>
