The Korean Connection (The Tamil Princess who ruled Korea)
In Bollywood movies, it is not uncommon where a long lost family reunites with a ‘family’ song. Or that someone finds a brother (whom he has never seen from childhood) by identifying that they have same mannerisms. Even a case where someone remembers something random so vividly only to be explained that it is from his former birth. In short, these are some interesting connections.
In today’s Masala History by Siva, I will try to explain to you some interesting connections between 2 far away countries/communities and trace back to the event that could have sparked it in the first place. I will admit that some of these are educated guesses and conjectures with lighter evidence, nevertheless something definitely to consider; Perhaps will give you a wow moment. So buckle your seatbelt and set the time dial to 45 CE as we travel to the Kingdom of Geumgwan Gaya which is the southeast part of modern day South Korea.
In the year 43 CE, King Suro founded the kingdom of Geumgwan Gaya. Legend states that King Suro descended from heaven concealed in an egg along with others, to establish the Gaya Confederacy. When time was right for his marriage, he refused to marry any of the locals. He is supposed to have a dream that his bride would come from a very far off unknown land. Accordingly there descends on their coastal city — the future queen — a sixteen year old princess named Suriratna. The Princess comes with a large convoy of ships with courtiers, cooks, jewellers, a small army etc. She has traveled for 200 days from the far away land of Ayuta.
Assuming this as the signal for his wedding, the King comes down to the costal city to marry her. She is titled Queen Heo Hwang Ok — she would bear 10 children and in 21st century, over six million Koreans would be considered proud direct descendants of this royal couple. The Queen Heo Hwang Ok continued to rule after King Suro’s death and she is supposed to have lived for 152 years. She continues to be revered as a Sea Goddess Queen to the day. There is a gigantic memorial of the Queen in Gimhae in South Korea; it’s gateway displays a twin fish symbol, that was supposedly on the ships and flags of Princess Suriratna when she arrived.
So where did Queen Heo Hwang Ok or Princess Suriratna originate from? Scripts refer to the land of Ayuta from far away and the land’s symbol was the twin fish. Lets explore three possibilities.
Option 1 is that of the Kingdom of Ayuthya, of Thailand. It did have multiple port cities and is of course, a ship journey of 200 days is possible to modern day Gimhae. However the Kingdom of Ayuthya was established only in mid 14th century, taking that option out.
Option 2 is Ayodhya, the famous land where Lord Ram is supposed to have born and ruled. Ayodhya was an ancient city and is a good possibility. But it is to be noted that Ayodhya was a landlocked kingdom with no easy access to ports that provided a route to Korea. Also more importantly, Ayodhya was actually known as Saketa in the 1st century and for several hundred years later — which makes this theory questionable. (However when some of the chronicles of Heo Hwang Ok was penned down, the name Ayodhya did exist). The twin fish, which was apparently on the Princess’ ship & flag can incidentally be found on the symbol of Government of Uttar Pradesh — where Ayodhya is located, but that symbol was designed only in 1916 when India was British India and has no historical connection whatsoever with our Korean story.
Funnily, without any consideration to historical proofs, the modern day powers of Government of Uttar Pradesh worked with South Korean consulate to establish a memorial for Queen Heo Hwang Ok in Ayodhya. Thousands of Koreans travel to the city to pay homage to their queen every year and it is quite sad, because it is very highly likely that they are visiting the absolutely wrong city. But again, history being hijacked is not new at all.
And that brings us to the Option 3. Princess Suriratna was from the Pandyan Kingdom’s territory of Ayi, or perhaps from Ayuta — a name used for the region of Kanyakumari in the past. Lets see the possibilities here. The Pandyan symbol was that of a twin fish, resembling the same at the memorial of Queen Heo Hwang Ok — the symbol was in her ship and flags when she descended. All erstwhile South Indian kingdoms of Chera/Chola/Pandya/Pallava had strong trade ties with Roman, Arabs and Chinese. We all know of how the Pallava prince Bodhidharma traveled to China to establish the Shaolin temple, around that time. The Pandyas had trade relations with Chinese and Korea, so it is heavily likely that they forged an alliance with the new power there. Also the 200 day sea travel indicates that the princess traveled from one of the ports in the South of the subcontinent and not from Ayodhya.
One of the more prominent chronicled names of Princess Suriratna was Seembavalam (சீம்பவழம்) — which literally is a Tamil name that stands for Pure Coral or Red Coral. (Suriratna could also be a derived name of the Ratna (meaning gemstone, representing Coral) that married Suro).
Now to some more interesting commonalities between Tamil and Korean. The first words that children speak — Mom and Dad — are Amma and Appa in both these languages. Infact the Tamil letter of ‘A’ (அ) looks similar to its Korean alphabet equivalent (엄). The Korean and Tamil languages have more than 500 words recorded in common, most of them commonly used words & terms everyday. The lullaby sung in Tamil (using rhyming terms like Aararo, Aariraro) is similar to the most famous Korean lullaby (Arirang Arirang Arariyo).
The two communities share similar traditions like leaving the slippers outside of the homes. Even more interesting is that the centuries old ancient game of Ammaanai or Five stones is common between Tamils and Koreans, in Korea it is called Gonggi and is played popularly at homes — exactly the same way between 3 women players just like in Tamil homes. There is lot of commonality even in food — like athirsam (a jaggery sweet)=yakgwa, kanji (porridge) =juk, sevai (rice noodles) =myron!
Based on all the above and some more, the Option 3 is more plausible and it is very highly likely that the sea Goddess Queen Heo Hwang Ok was actually Princess Seembavalam from Pandya Kingdom of South India. While there may not be absolute archeological evidence for this, it is to be said that this is definitely not a concocted story or a case of random coincidence — there are just too many similarities between the Korean and Tamil cultures to ignore. I am absolutely sure that this is a historic fact awaiting more evidence for confirmation. I sincerely hope this is a project that Indian historians and archaeologists will pick up to demystify, keeping their regional affiliations aside.
One of the things I have always wondered is why do Korean TV series find such amazing popularity in Indian Television, especially Tamil ones. And occasionally how does the lip-sync match, between the actors who are supposedly speaking in Korean, with the voice over in Tamil. Now I know why!
#tamilhistory #indianhistory #koreanhistory #korea #pandyas
#gaya #suro #heohwangok #suriratna #ayuta #ayodhya #ayuthya
#southkorea #gimhae #twinfish #culture #southkorea
