Ⅲ. Dangun Thought and the Western Korean Wave
The Western Korean Wave may be called a history of exchange between the West and Korea. The universality that constitutes the Korean Wave's popularity—unforeseen even by Koreans themselves—may be seen as the activation of a Korean cultural gene transmitted through the Western Korean Wave from antiquity. Park Yong-suk once revealed that the etymology of modern modernism derives from the mu (巫, shaman) of the shaman.[42] Indeed, the Korean Wave, now discussed as reaching even a fourth wave, has thus far been said to owe its popularity to a female culture linked to the Samsin matrilineal line. The common code of Dae Jang Geum, Winter Sonata, and BTS is said to be universality and femininity.[43]
This femininity has been called Korean culture in contrast to the Western dichotomy designated as black-and-white logic, and viewed in terms of the three-dimensional Five Phases it becomes depth, circulation, and empathy. In fact, Hwang Tae-yeon holds that Western modernity began from the Confucian empathy transmitted by Matteo Ricci.[44] Depth represents threefold differentiation (samsu bunhwa).
To examine the process of the Western Korean Wave, a more comprehensive analysis of the Dangun origins in Western antiquity and the Middle Ages is required. The Korean Wave exists not only today but began in antiquity, and so the Western Korean Wave likewise begins from ancient history.
According to Woo Chang-su, a scholar of Dangun Thought who has recently drawn attention for his empirical study of ancient history, world history up to the seventh century AD is identical with the history of the Korean people.[45] Examining matters on the basis of Woo Chang-su's theory that world history up to the seventh century AD is the same as Korean history, one can clearly understand the Western Korean Wave up to the seventh century AD.
According to Woo Chang-su, world history changed greatly with the fall of Baekje in AD 663 as its turning point. In terms of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, 663 is the date of the four-gapja (四甲子), which recurs once every 1,980 years. That is, the nearest four-gapja day among the eras for which history remains in written record—namely the gyehae year, gapja month, gapja day, and gapja hour—is the winter solstice of 663. The astronomy of this era forms a vertical-horizontal alignment in a single line.
This was the last day of the Battle of Baekjan Fortress, in which final victory was won over the Japan–Baekje allied states. The war between Baekje–Japan and the Silla–Tang alliance was a long-cherished undertaking of China spanning some 1,000 years and may be called the first world war since the Great Battle of Zhuolu. The forgetting of the Western Korean Wave originates from this time. After the fall of Baekje, there was again war between Tang and Silla, but the refugees of Baekje and Goguryeo cooperated with Silla, and Geumsansa was built to mourn them.
Taking the year 663 as its turning point, the Tang dynasty finally transferred to China the culture and history of Gojoseon, including the regular script (haeseo), the origin of Chinese characters. The reason world history after the seventh century AD is not recognized as Korean history is said to be that history at this point was left unexplained. In fact, the Westerner Terence McKenna holds that, applying vectors in the order of the Sequence-of-Hexagrams commentary (Seogwajeon) of the Book of Changes, history from the time of King Yao coincides with a vector graph of time. Viewed through this timescale year-chart, the thesis of the Korean-peninsula origin of Buddhism that Han Jong-seop presented at the 2018 autumn conference of the New Anthropology Society is highly persuasive. The circulation principle of the cauldron (sot) and the steamer (siru) also closely matches the law of circulation.[47] Indeed, the lotus and the 'hum' of Om Mani Padme Hum, and the Maitreya of Mireuk, are said to represent the sun and the sun's circulation principle.[48]
Just as the myth of Troy was proven to be history, Woo Chang-su says that the history of Dangun today is likewise becoming ever clearer through China's Northeast Project and Northwest Project. China, which once recognized only the Xia dynasty, today calls itself the descendants of Yan and Huang (yeomhwang jison)—descendants of Shennong (the Yan Emperor) and the Yellow Emperor—and extends its chronology back to Shennong and the Yellow Emperor. It identifies the state of Emperor Yao with the Taosi civilization, claims that Shennong and the Yellow Emperor originated from the Zhang (Tibetan) people to the west, and seeks to link Dunhuang—which has over ten thousand ancient tombs and is most closely associated with Asadal—to the Northwest Project.[49] If we examine the Western Korean Wave by connecting the three-dimensional Five Phases with various theories of ancient history, then, roughly in chronological order, it is as follows.
1. 70,000–12,000 Years Ago
According to recent discoveries in archaeology and genetics, the origin of the Western Korean Wave may be dated to 70,000 years ago. Unlike the 『Hwandan Gogi』, the 『Sinsagi (神事記)』 estimates the beginning of history at 70,000 years. It is said that the claim that seven Hwanin ruled for 70,000 years is so difficult that the 『Hwandan Gogi』 sidesteps it. Yet 70,000 years shows the reason Koreans possess the most Neanderthal genes.[50] 70,000 years ago is regarded archaeologically as a year of great crustal upheaval. Archaeology shows why a new humanity was born at that time. The notion that Homo sapiens had superior genes to Neanderthals has today been overturned. That Koreans have the world's highest level of Neanderthal genes shows that today's Korean Wave boom has a genetic factor. The further one moves toward East Asia, the more Neanderthal genes there are, and by Google's published estimates in particular, Korea reaches the world's highest level.[51] Humanity began in Africa, and in Rwanda, Africa, there is a language similar to Korean; it is said that tracing it makes it possible to trace all the roots of the Korean language.[52]
Woo Chang-su holds that, because humankind lived for sixty thousand years in a matriarchal society, as in the Mago myth, today's civilization became possible.[53] A characteristic of matriarchal society is said to be that, like bees or ants, it builds a vast civilization reaching units of a million. By contrast, male-dominated apes maintain units of merely seven or eight. During this period, humans became so cooperative that their genes changed; their cooperative system developed to the point of exterminating mammoths through actual hunting, and a peaceful civilization persisted to the extent that corpses with skulls ruptured by war have not yet been found. This situation is also well reflected in the Bible. Woo Chang-su emphasizes that the content of Aranbul in the Buyeo myth and that of Abraham coincide.[54]
Matrilineal society is connected with Taeeul, the symbol of Eastern thought, and with the go board. The garlic in the Dangun myth is interpreted as maneul (卍乙) and thereby linked with Taeeul. Some say that the Magoseong (Mago Fortress) of the Budoji also coincides with the go board.[56] The 卍, regarded today as a symbol of Buddhism, though reversed in direction, was the symbol of the Aryans, and the Aryans are connected with the Mago people who came down from Central Asia, that is, from Dunhuang. This maneul appeared as Taeeul and Okhwang (the Jade Emperor) in China's Han dynasty, and the three sovereigns—the Heavenly Sovereign, the Earthly Sovereign, and the Human Sovereign—as well as Okhwang, are connected with the three gods of Mago (Mago Samsin). The 卍 shows the form of the law of circulation according to the three-dimensional Five Phases. This becomes the origin of the twin-fish motif and of the Taegeuk. In terms of the three-dimensional Five Phases, the three gods of Mago can symbolize the three axes of the three-dimensional Five Phases. Heaven–Earth–Human comes to the fore as the problem-solving principle of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, and it comes to the fore at this time as the principle of making the conveniences of civilization, and the foundations of the Chinese characters and of Hangul are also formed.
2. 12,000 Years Ago – Emperor Yao (2333 BC)
The fact that Genesis of the Bible is contained in Chinese characters shows that Chinese characters were devised in a certain era.[57] Park Yong-suk also links Catalhoyuk, a representative site of this period, with Fuxi,[58] and recent findings at the Gobekli Tepe site and other archaeological discoveries decisively prove a twelve-thousand-year antiquity.[59] Together with the seventy-thousand-year thesis, the twelve-thousand-year thesis closely accords with Shao Kangjie's wonhoeunse (cosmic cycles). Woo Chang-su holds that Chinese characters were created in this period and that Chinese characters, like Hangul, are composed of some two hundred morphemes.
In this period Fuxi appears in China—unlike in the Hwandan Gogi—as the Yellow Bear (Hwangung, 黃熊), who may be regarded as Hwanung, and the Yellow Emperor leaves descendants who become the ancestors of Koreans: Zhuanxu Gaoyang (Goguryeo) and Shaohao Jintian (Silla). Yi Seung-gyu says that when the heavenly emperor who then ruled ten thousand li did not pass the throne to Crown Prince Buru, and the emperorship passed to Shun instead of Yao, the Land of Gentlemen (gunja-guk) split off and, as in the Gyuwon Sahwa, was transmitted through forty-seven generations.[60]
According to Woo Chang-su, this period is one in which the Asadal civilization of Gojoseon spread widely, reaching as far as Greece and Rome.[61] The sunken continent known today as Sundaland is said to have allowed free passage across Eurasia.[62] The language of ancient Greece—philosophical terms such as archē and personal names such as Aristotle—abounds in linguistic and philosophical elements that flowed in from Gojoseon. Indeed, the earth-water-fire-wind that arose simultaneously in Greece and India resembles Yin-Yang and the Five Phases.
The connection of Greece and Rome with Indian culture was noted early on, and the Indian culture that formed the background of Greek culture is itself substantially influenced by Asadal. The Rig Veda and the Upanishads, which became the foundation of Indian culture, are full of the same threefold differentiation principle as the Cheonbugyeong; indeed, it is said that the Indian upper classes—such as Tagore, or the director of the Indian museum whom the southern-theory scholar Dr. Kim Byeong-mo met—already knew of their connection with Asadal culture. Kim Jeong-min's Kazakhstan–Gojoseon theory, widely known on YouTube, and Park Yong-suk's theory, widely known since the 1960s, are theories that support this. Such hypotheses explain that the origins of Plato's theory of Ideas, the styles of Greek art, and Sanskrit-derived terms that became the origins of religions worldwide—such as Maitreya (Mireuk) and Om Mani Padme Hum—began in Korea.[63]
According to Woo Chang-su, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences today identifies the Yellow Emperor's surname as Kim.[64] Lacouperie, called France's foremost China expert of the nineteenth century, once held that the Yellow Emperor came from Babylonia.[65] Since then, Japan has maintained the Babylonian-origin thesis of Chinese civilization as its mainstream view up to the present. Kim becomes the Jurchen, and in Western languages Aisin, which connects to the numerous Western words meaning iron and even to the Qing dynasty's Aisin Gioro; and, as is well known, Koreans have the most people surnamed Kim, said to approach nearly 50 percent when derived Kim lineages are included.[66]
Dangun appears as a teaching presence in many regions of that time and across numerous civilizations, and the history of this age becomes the origin of today's Western Korean Wave.
3. Emperor Yao (2333 BC) – the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC)
The resemblance between the portrait of Dangun said to have been drawn by Seol Chong and the figure of Sargon plainly shows the East–West exchange of ancient history.[67]
Searching Google for 'kara,' the same root as Gaya, turns up results in numerous regions, and Sargon is said to be pronounced the same as Dangun.[68] Lee Seung-gyu holds that Dangun was Cheon-gun, a kind of regional feudal-lord concept of the time. Combining the two theories, a Sargon as a feudal lord of the Land of the Gentleman (gunjaguk), which was a world empire, is also possible. The recent discovery that the African language Kinyarwanda is the same as Korean also holds that civilization was transferred to the Korean peninsula owing to a flood in this period.[69]
As mentioned in the field of economic thought, from this point on the three-dimensional Five Phases of threefold differentiation is interpreted as planar-and-solid.[70] As in the Babylon legend of the Bible, at this time the world splits into the three-dimensional Five Phases and the planar Five Phases, and the mainstream culture shifts from a matrilineal society to a patrilineal one. It becomes the period of entry from an age of peace into an age of war.
Noteworthy are the numerous wounds on the Yinxu skeletal remains discovered as artifacts of the Yin (Shang) dynasty. Woo Chang-su holds that the numerous wound marks on the Yinxu remains are traces of the Yinxu site's being annihilated, and that the cause of the annihilation was its attempt to read Heaven's divination in place of Gojoseon. Until before 663, China continually sought to take over the status of the Land of Gentlemen (gunjaguk).
4. The Han Dynasty (2nd Century BC) – 663 (Fall of Baekje)
The reason Yin-Yang and the Five Phases came to prominence in the Han dynasty is a difficult problem not yet precisely solved. In the Hwandan Gogi, the lineage of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases appears from the time of King Yao, but in Chinese records it begins in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period and is established under Dong Zhongshu of the Han. Just as Chinese writing is called Han characters (漢子) and China is written with the character Han (漢), the occasion by which China came to represent Gojoseon culture today began in this period and was completed under the Tang dynasty. The Taoism that became popular in the Han, together with Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, was imported from Goguryeo and Buyeo. Taoism was re-imported into Goguryeo. An Dong-jun holds that the Taoist thunder deity Gucheon Eungwon Noeseong appearing in the Okchubogyeong also originates from the myths of Goguryeo and Buyeo.[71]
What Zhang Liang, the strategist of Emperor Gaozu of Han, and Liu Bei of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have in common is that both were straw-sandal sellers.[72] The straw sandal is said to be the code of the operative forces that Goguryeo—successor to the Land of Gentlemen—sent into China. The Sui and Tang dynasties mobilized vast resources to attack Goguryeo, and this is said to have been a struggle to seize that initiative and legitimacy.
5. 663 (Fall of Baekje) – Matteo Ricci (1610)
Woo Chang-su holds that what emerged after Baekje fell and even handed over its writing system to China was Silla's idu.[73] After the Tang dynasty, Korea could not write its own history and came to record it only indirectly. It is said that 8 is a number symbolizing Gojoseon. The reason Chinese people so love 8 is said to be not so much that 8 symbolizes wealth as that 8 is the number of Gojoseon. It is said that the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties deliberately divided the country into eight because of the spirit of succeeding Gojoseon.[74] Indeed, it is said that the first thing King Gojong did upon achieving independence after the Sino-Japanese War was to erect the many octagonal pavilions that remain today.
The Gojoseon civilization that crossed into China, passing through the Song, Yuan, and Ming, ultimately had its development delayed, and is said to have crossed over again to the West through the translation enterprise of the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci, who had come to the West. Through Matteo Ricci's translation, Leibniz interpreted the Book of Changes scientifically as binary notation and, through the Chinese model in which a moral society is possible without Christianity, created a new modern civilization. The West called this new modern civilization modernism, using the root 'mu' (巫, mod), meaning shamanism.
The core concept that the modern West adopted from China for "realizing a moral society without Christianity" was sympathy. What the modern West took most notice of in Chinese morality was Mencius's theory of the "child about to fall into a well."[75] The reason the theory of the child falling into a well was so important to Westerners in Mencius was that it showed the ground of morality could be replaced by human sympathy. Mencius argued that when a person sees a child about to fall into a well and tries to save it, this is not due to rational calculation or an attitude of putting oneself in another's place, but due to the sympathizing nature innate in human beings—thereby providing a theoretical grounding for Confucius's idea of benevolence (in, 仁). The West interpreted Mencius's benevolence as sympathy, and this was brought to fruition by Hume and connected to Adam Smith's economic thought.[76]
Adam Smith, connecting Hume's theory of empathy with Laozi's wu-wei and naturalness, established the laissez-faire economic theory that is the foundation of today's capitalism. This was also completed politically when, at the end of the nineteenth century, Britain politically emulated China's civil-service examination system. Contrary to what was taught in school under Japanese colonial influence, it was not that the West enlightened a benighted East, but that from antiquity the West was influenced by the civilization of Gojoseon. In postmodernism and posthumanism, the Dangun Thought of the Cheonbugyeong is especially highlighted.
In the West, which is enthusiastic about today's Korean Wave, there was a historical background. Research on Gojoseon's influence has recently extended even to Africa and America. This also well explains the background of the Korean Wave rising on the African and American continents.