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Once more we step back into Ancient History with a trip to the southern Korean kingdom of Kaya.
A letter in today’s Korea Times by perennial contributor Prabhat K. Mukherjee caught my attention. In it he writes of meeting a Korean man on a subway one day who told him that he had family ties to India.
I’ll just give you a little taste of what follows, because it’s certainly worth your while reading:
He then went on to say that his ancestors belonged to the Kaya dynasty, an ancient kingdom that was located in Korea?????s southeast, in the southern reaches of Naktong river, now known as Kimhae. He said that the queen of Kaya?????s King Kim Suro was actually a princess in the court of the Ayutha King of India.
In this Korean text here where the above pictures are sourced from, it gives more details about the 16 year-old princess who came to Korea to marry a King there. Did she bring tea with her from India? The suggestions is made there, and also here, in an article from the Hindru Vivek Kendra webiste, billed as “a resource centre for the promotion of Hindutva”. It gives much more detail about the legend of the founding of Kaya/Gaya, and how Queen Hwang-ok came to be married to Kim So-ru. Here is a very nifty little sound-bite:
The Kaya kingdom’s influence is still felt in modern-day South Korea. Kimhae Kims and Kimhae Huhs trace their origins to this ancient kingdom and Korea’s current President Kim Dae Jung and Prime Minister Jong Pil Kim are Kimhae Kims. Therein lies the Indian Queen’s importance in Korea eyes - she is revered as the progenitor of two powerful clans which have survived to this day.
Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil possibly partly of Indian heritage? What a concept.
Those wanting to learn more about Kaya may find the Institute of Kaya Culture here
Update: a couple more links:
one with a map that is from a Hindu site, and one from old Jack Choe, who used to be at the Korea Herald, (or was it the times), asking the contraversial question
Was Kaya Japan’s Colony?
11 Comments
Suro’s wife (often called just that: ????¡œ?¶€??¸) is one of I think seven or eight foreigners who appear in the Samguk Yusa.
All Koreans learn that she came from India because it’s in the textbooks… I learned for the first time when I was part of a Yusa study group and remember being surprised at how she and the other foreigners in there are just mentioned matter of factly. No comments like “And s/he spoke urimal so well….
How different Koyr?´ times were.
Yes, perhaps the days of Kaya were less like those of the Sioux Indians than Korea of today, ne pas?
So, one would think, then, that if some Koreans could trace their lineage back to some Indian ancestry, that they might treat those Indians who come here to work more like family? Fat chance of that happening, unfortunately. Even with that knowledge, most Koreans still think that their race is “pure.”
Korean history! Much better than limp photos from environmentalist.
On a related note, the Kaya royal tomb in Hamchang-eup, Sangju City, North Gyeongsang Province is a really good make-out spot.
I knew all of this because I’m Korean. What I still don’t understand is how the Indian born Queen could be the ancestors of Huhs and her husband the ancestor of Kims. Except for this situation, I think Fathers are the ancestors of any last name. In Korea, anyway.
So, what did Mr. Kim and his wife the Inidan born Queen decide to do?
Did they simply say half their kids are Kims and half their kids are Huhs?
Because, those Kims and Huhs mentioned insist that they are practically the same family.
Kaya’s Kims later take over Shilla’s royal positions. Shilla also had a lot of queens as rulers, whereas this is never seen in Kokuryo, Paekchae, Koryo or Chosun (the male kings were always the legit rulers even if the male king was doing what mama said or what grandma said).
Hard to accept that she might have brought tea from India, given that Robert Fortune had not had the chance to enter China yet to steal tea and the secrets of its processing, and get the results to the British “Raj”, which kicked off the Indian tea industry. Gaya was long gone by the 1840s.
Let’s ask Oranckay or dda, or anyone who has read the Samgukyusa - was the tea story mentioned there? That book predates 1840, so if it is mentioned there it might raise the question of whether there was no tea in India before Fortune.
????¡œ?¶€??¸ is a completely different person from, King Suro’s wife. Her name was Suro and she was the wife of ??œ????³? during the reign of King Seongduk of the Shilla dynasty. She was famous because some guy plucked a flower for her from a hard-to-reach spot on a cliff.
WJK, the answer to your question is readily explained. Families, particularly royals, have a habit of becoming too large over time and unwieldly. This creates problems for succession and sometimes peripheral branches of the royal family will be trimmed off. For example, in the case of classical Japan, the Minamoto and Taira families were very closely related by blood to the main imperial family. However, as the imperial family expanded and there were too many princes to support, more distant relatives were cut off. I recall that the Minamoto at one point happened to be brothers of a reigning emperor, who were cut off from imperial succession and became the Minamoto clan. The Taira were more or less the same, though I believe they were cousins instead of brothers.
Thus overtime in Korea, the same events probably unfolded. The Kimhae Kim’s are one branch of the descendants of the King and Queen, the Kimhae Huh’s another. Although I really should point out the distinct possibility that neither politician in actuality is related to either of the historical figures. We may like to believe so but it is more likely to be as fictitious as the so-called “continuity” of the Japanese royal family. Remember, most Korean surnames were just abritrarily adopted and family records faked to provide a degree of prestige.
YIKES
“SY” is right, Lady Suro is a completely different person from King Suro’s wife… and one should be able to figure that out without even knowing the facts, because no one is going to be called Lady ‘X” by being married to a Mr. “X.” He’ll be Mr. X and she’ll be, for example, Lady Y.
Lady Suro and King Suro don’t even share the same hanja for Suro. (Duh!!)
I meant King Suro’s wife, Heo Hwang Ok. Sorry for the oh so embarassing confusion….