Korean Connection

By Narayanan Kannan

A Korean historian has initiated bilateral ties with the government of Ayodhya for possibly connecting the well-known Kim clan of Korea to a legendary queen from India who established a confederation of merchant states called Kaya in Gimhae, South Korea. Though King Misra of Ayodhya was wary of this claim, he accepted an offer by the Kim clan to erect a memorial in Ayodhya for economic reasons. However, while scrutinizing the facts by field studies, literature survey and historical search the queen might not have been from Ayodhya, instead from Madurai, Tamilnadu. This may look trivial but considering the geopolitical and linguistic nature of Indian statehood, these findings are emotional and controversial. The Korean Connection is a book based on facts and figures of a research over a decade conducted by the author. This will interest not only scholars and history enthusiasts but a common reader too. This will be a treat for anybody interested in Korea and its cultural inheritance. Ancient India and its domination on sea trade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. N. Kannan
• Release date: Jan 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215769829

Narayanan Kannan

An Indian born world citizen. He has lived in India, Japan, Germany, Korea, and Malaysia and is a naturalized citizen of Germany. He is multilingual and multicultural. He is a poet and an author of 15 books in Tamil, a poetry book in English, a non-fiction in English and he has edited a bilingual treatise. He is a digital humanist and co-founder of Tamil Heritage Foundation (www.tamilheritage.org). He is an internet savvy. An active blogger, FB content provider, social media activist, Pod caster and a YouTuber. His training as a scientist brings unique flavor to his creative writings whether it is a simple quote or a poetry or fictions. He prefers to write more of non-fiction these days. He often dwells in mythology and religious tradition of India and reinterpret them to give hopes in these troubled times. He writes often about the need of a paradigm shift for the future for mankind.

Book preview

Author’s Note

Though Korea and India are far apart, they are close by culture, history, and economy. It was proposed first by Homer Bezaleel Hulbert an American missionary, journalist, and political activist in his book entitled A comparative grammar of the Korean language and the Dravidian languages of India in the year 1905 that there exists a linguistic connection between Tamil and Korean. In his book The Origin of the Japanese Language (1970), Susumu Ōno proposed a layer of Dravidian (specifically Tamil) vocabulary in both Korean and Japanese. Morgan E. Clippinger gave a detailed comparison of Korean and Dravidian vocabulary in his article Korean and Dravidian: Lexical Evidence for an Old Theory (1984). Most recently, Kim Byeongmo, Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at Hanyang University in his book Kim Byeongmo’s Archaeological Travels: Heo Hwangok’s Route, from India to Gaya proposed a transcontinental migration of Indians to China and then to Korea substantiating the narration of Ilyon in his legendary historical treatise called Samguk Yusa (CE 1280).

An alternative hypothesis is proposed in this book with literary, linguistic, historical, archaeological, cultural, and biological evidence to prove that this passage might have been via a well-travelled sea route created by ancient Tamil Maritimers between the land of Pandiyas (Tamilnadu) and Kaya (Gimhae), Korea. It is timely to bring to the notice of scholars and history enthusiasts, the antiquity of Tamilnadu, India to show that queen Heo Hwang Ok the originator of Gimhae Kim clan with surnames Kim, Heo and Lee/Yi was probably from Tamilnadu and the present monument for her situated in Ayodhya should have been in Madurai, Tamilnadu. 

This book emerges out of intensive research conducted since 2006 on this subject with subsequent publications and presentations in international/national conferences and journals. In addition, this book contains translations of classical Tamil poems of antiquities, Korean narrative of the lineage of the queen, and arguments to substantiate the claim that the original migration was from Tamilnadu to Korea straight and not from Ayodhya to China and Korea (Gimhae). I hope this will bring clarity to Korean and Indian public, the cultural enthusiasts, and historians. I see a trend among the youths of Tamilnadu to fall in love with Korea which in fact is due to a past, historical connection, and transference. It is again not an accident that most of the Korean investment in India is in Tamilnadu and Korean companies clustering around Chennai. In fact, it is more than the uttering of Amma and Appa for mother and father among Tamils and Koreans. There is a long maritime connection between these two countries. I will be very happy if it stimulates serious research on this beautiful romantic history of Kaya and Pandiya.

I thank Prof. (Retd.), Vyjayanti Raghavan of Centre for Korean Studies, Jawarhal Nehru University, Delhi for giving a foreword to this book. I thank Dr. Rathi Jafer Director of InKo Center, Chennai for involving me in the center’s research activities on Korean-Tamil historical links. I thank Dr. Subashini Kanagasundaram, President, Tamil Heritage Foundation for encouraging me constantly in this research and supported me in bringing up an anthology on Korea-Tamil connections in 2016 (listed at the end). Mr. S. Balasubramani alias Orissa Balu was instrumental in conducting three international seminars in Chennai involving Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Chennai and a workshop on, The Turtle Trail- Indo-Korean research project in InKo involving several Korean researchers. I thank Prof. (Retd.) Nagarajan, a former faculty of Madras University, in helping me with ancient maps of India when Chemba alias Heo Hwang Ok supposedly travelled from ancient Tamilagam in the early Christian era to Korea. I thank MinTamil research forum of Tamil Heritage Foundation for being an electronic platform for discussing this research from 2006 until today. I thank Sumitra Kannan, my wife and Sweta Kannan, my daughter in actively participating in the preparation of this manuscript.

Kannan Narayanan PhD

Heikendorf, Germany

December 26, 2022

Foreword

Korean Connection is a very engaging collection of papers presented by Dr. Narayanan Kannan at various fora. He draws very interesting historical connections and parallels between Southern India and South Korea (ROK), and in many instances has made path-breaking revelations too. The exchanges between the two countries, as discovered a few decades ago, started in the first century CE and seem to have impacted various arenas. It is said to have started an Indian blood lineage in Korea. This accidental discovery kindled the curiosity of some scholars, and several research in various fields of study were conducted.

Dr. Kannan is one such scholar who has through his sustained interest and scholarship in the area, drawn very convincing new discoveries. His research reveals linkages of South Korea’s Kaya (Gaya) kingdom not with Ayodhya of Uttar Pradesh, India, as was established by scholars by their interpretation of the legend mentioned in Korea’s 13th century book The Samguk Yusa, but with the kingdom of the Pandiyas in Tamil Nadu. He has delved deep into the field and has drawn very interesting and convincing connections between the two kingdoms seen through iron artifacts, ethnicity through DNA transmissions, archeological evidence through dolmen structures, stones and their imprints, linguistic cognates, and grammar etc. Some of these, according to him, date back to times even prior to Princess Suriratna’s sea voyage to Kaya (Gaya) kingdom in Kimhae (Gimhae), in present day South Gyeongsan province. The original book is in Tamil and this book in English is a shorter version of that. This book that reveals various aspects, many of which are completely new research of the strong interface between the history of Gaya and Pandiya (Tamil Nadu), is sure to interest scholars of Korean studies in India and those of Indian studies in Korea. It could be made part of their reading list. It is sure to inspire deeper research on the topics covered in the book. Dr. Kannan needs to be congratulated for his major path breaking contribution to the field.

Vyjayanti Raghavan PhD

Prof. (Retd.), Centre for Korean Studies,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

A Korean reaction

Ihave heard about a story of an Indian princess coming to Gaya to get married to the king. To me, it was just a legend without facts, much like Dangun who established Korea (Chosun) some 4,000 years ago when he was born from a mother who became a human after eating garlic for 100 days.  Reading Dr. Narayanan Kannan's Korean Connection that is filled with facts in easy language, I now have become a believer that India and Korean share the same blood.  A must read for those who are interested in learning how Korea and India became a family long time ago.

Hyungsik Yoon

- a senior alumnus of KBC Creator, Korea

An Indian reaction

Korean Connection by Narayanan Kannan reads like a thriller. Kannan is eminently suitable for writing about this legendary connection between Korea and India with certain authority as he has spent eight years in Korea doing research at KIOST – Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology. During his stay there he had learned the local language and studied in detail the customs and traditions of the country. That naturally led him to do some deeper thinking on Indo-Korean relationship.

While historically considerable material is available to study the relationship between India and China, there is not much available to do the same between Korea and India and historians must depend on Chinese literature for studying this part.

Historicity is described as the historical actuality of persons and events instead of being a myth, legend, or fiction. It depends on historical actuality, authenticity and focuses on true values. If we look at the legend of a queen being introduced in Korea of an Indian origin, in many ways the legend loses its value of historicity. Having said that, legends cannot be swept under the carpet; they do have some basic elements that can contribute to historicity when looked at in proper perspective.

The historiographer Francis Hartog introduced the notion of regimes of historicity to describe a society that considers its past and attempts to deal with it, a process that is also cited as a method of self-awareness in a human community. Hartog explores crucial moments of change in society's regimes of historicity, or its ways of relating to the past, present, and future. Thus, there is a constant endeavor to rethink and reconstruct material available to build history from whatever source available.

Here we have a classic case of a queen being introduced from India into a Korean clan and there is a claim that the queen was from Ayodhya. Kannan in his spirited argument in this book claims that if a queen was indeed taken from India, it could not have been from Ayodhya but from Tamil Nadu where a locality Ay did exist.

The story about a Korean queen of Indian origin, is doubted by historians. As Kannan rightly notes, it is believed that to establish the Buddhist origin and identity the story was invented to link Ayodhya in India to Korea. 

Kannan after having studied in depth the relation between Korea and South India, quotes from authors like Homer Bezaleel (A comparative grammar of the Korean language and the Dravidian languages of India) to suggest that there is close linguistic relation between these two countries. He quotes again from Morgan E. Clippinger’s detailed comparison of Korean and Dravidian vocabulary in his article Korean and Dravidian: Lexical Evidence for an Old Theory and Kim Byeongmo, Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at Hanyang University in his book Kim Byeongmo’s Archaeological Travels: Heo Hwangok’s Route, from India to Gaya proposed a transcontinental migration of Indians to China and then to Korea substantiating the narration of Ilyon in his legendary historical treatise called Samguk Yusa (CE 1280). 

The sea route connection between south India and the East is a strong point that Kannan uses effectively quoting from various sources including Sangam literature to prove his point that it was easier to go to Korea from south India by sea than by a land route from Ayodhya. Having thus built up a background for his alternative hypothesis, Kannan familiarizes the reader with the linguistic connection between Tamil and Korean. During the eight years of his stay in Korea, he had the