Legendary Korean Queen 'Heo Hwang-Ok' Was From Ayutthaya Kingdom (Ayodhya - Ancient City in India and Birthplace of Sri Rama)

AYODHYA is an ancient city of India, the birthplace of Prabhu Sri Rama and setting of the epic Ramayana. It is adjacent to Faizabad city at south end in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

India's early contacts with Korea date back more than 2000 years. Two thousand years ago, a 16 year old princess from Ayodhya, accompanied by her brother, sailed from India for Korea. We only know her by her Korean name, Huh Wang-Ock. There she wed King Kim Suro, founder of the ancient Korean kingdom of Karack. The King himself received her upon her arrival, and later built a temple at the place where they had first met. She is said to have died at the grand old age of 189. Her story is narrated in the ancient Korean history books, "Samkuksaki" and "Samkukyusa".

Her tomb is located in Kimhae and there is a stone pagoda in front of the tomb. The pagoda is built with stones, which the princess is said to have brought with her from Ayodhya. They have engravings and red patterns. They are believed to have a mysterious power to calm stormy seas. The Kimhae 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.

In February, 2000, Kimhae Mayor Song Eun-Bok led a delegation to Ayodhya. The delegation proposed to develop Ayodhya as a sister city of Kimhae and there are plans to set up a memorial for Queen Huh. Note: Ayodhya is the modern Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh. It was the capital of the kingdom of Prabhu Sri Ram, the seventh incarnation of Sri Maha Vishnu.

In the northern Indian city of Ayodhya, a visiting Korean delegation has inaugurated a memorial to their royal ancestor, Queen Huh. More than a-hundred historians and government representatives, including the North Korean ambassador to India, unveiled the memorial on the west bank of the River Saryu. Korean historians believe that Queen Huh was a princess of an ancient kingdom in Ayodhya. She went to Korea some two-thousand years ago and started the Karak dynasty by marrying a local king, Suro.

Today, the historians say, Queen Huh's descendants number more than six-million, including the South Korean president - Kim Dae Jung. According to a history book written in the 11th century in Korean language, "The History of Three Kingdoms" pay a visit to the picturesque banks of river Saryu in the holy city. Here one will find a monument in memory of an Ayodhya princess who is believed to have 'mothered' a dynasty in South Korea.

It has been an affair that resurfaced after a lapse of almost 2000 years in the year 2001. Mayors of Ayodhya and Kim-Hae city in South Korea had signed a Sister City Bond in March 2001.

Queen Huh was a princess of the kingdom. Her father, the king of Ayodhya, on receiving a divine revelation, sent her on a long sea voyage to the Karak kingdom in southern Korea to marry King Suro, states the lines inscribed on the plaque at the monument in Ayodhya.

The monument in memory of Hwang Huh is built in Korean tradition using a three-meter high stone weighing 7,500 kg, specially shipped from South Korea. The clan that descended from the Ayodhya princess Huh and South Korean King Suros, today known as Kim-Hae-Kim clan, has a little over six million Huh descendants in the Republic of South Korea. The Kim-Hae-Kim clan has countless illustrious members including many presidents and premiers.

The memorial site in Ayodhya has become a place of pilgrimage for members of the clan. While unveiling the monument Bong Ho-Kim, president of the clan society, Republic of Korea had said: "Ayodhya being birthplace of our great Queen Huh, has acquired the status of a place for pilgrimage to over six million descendants."

This stone is only found in India, proof that it came from there to Korea," said Song Weon Young, city archaeologist of Kimhae, a city near the big industrial town of Pusan. People of Kimhae were so fascinated by these links that they started research on it several years ago.

They also ran into a symbol of the Kaya Kingdom with two fish kissing each other, similar to that of the Mishra royal family in Ayodhya. The Princess is said to have given birth to 10 children, which marked the beginning of the powerful dynasty of Kimhae Kims. Kim Dae Jung, a former President also belongs to the same family name.

But even at the center of these links lies a strong sense of commercial exchange between Korea and India.The stone represents Kaya's cultural heritage which did not stay in one place, and the stone indicates that commercial exchange has been on since the Queen came from India. Thousands of miles away from Ayodhya, the stone is a small piece of history. The people in the city seem quite proud of their links with India, especially because Queen Suro gave rise to the Kim dynasty, a powerful family name in the country.

A genetic discovery in South Korea has claimed that Koreans could have an Indian ancestor 2000 years ago. The findings have gained interests in the backdrop of the popular romantic legend of an Indian princess married to a Korean king of the Great Gaya dynasty. According to the legend, the Korean king from Southeast Korea, Kim Su-ro, married an Indian princess, Heo Hwang-ok, from the ancient Indian kingdom of Ayodhya.

The stories say that Heo traveled by ship to Korea. The Great Gaya dynasty ruled Southeast Korea till 562 AD. In fact, Heo is still a common family name in Korea. The researchers now say that the myth could turn out to be true, according to the daily. More studies are in the offing. The genetic study at Gimhae tomb focused on the mitochondrial DNA in the human remains.

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suro_of_Geumgwan_Gaya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heo_Hwang-ok