4. A Comparison of the Land of the Gentlemen and Jeju Mythology

Im Hwan-yeong's research connecting Jeju mythology with Atlantis is based mainly on the Budoji and Dangun. But besides the Budoji and Dangun-related literature, which are relatively confined to Korea alone, if one seeks materials related to the Land of the Gentlemen, one can present much East Asian material.

"Land of the Gentlemen" was a term referring, in the Dangun era, to a state that made the Korean Peninsula region the center of its rule as seen from China. Like the Budoji, the Land of the Gentlemen is expressed as a region extending beyond 10,000 li—reaching as far as Egypt to the west and the American continent to the east.

First, the Land of the Gentlemen appears in the Yiwen Leiju (藝文類聚), a dictionary compiled in 625 by Ouyang Xun (歐陽詢) and others of Tang China by order of Emperor Gaozu (高祖).

《山海經》曰 君子國民冠帶劍土方千里多薫華之草 好讓 故為君子國
The Shanhaijing says: the people of the Land of the Gentlemen wear caps and gowns and bear swords. Their territory is a thousand li on each side.
Rose of Sharon flowers are abundant, and they yield to one another. Therefore it is called the Land of the Gentlemen.

Because the rose of Sharon (mugunghwa) is a word symbolizing the Korean Peninsula, the Land of the Gentlemen is regarded as pointing to the Korean Peninsula. Here it is said that the character of the people of the Land of the Gentlemen is exceptional and that their territory reaches a thousand li. More detailed content about the Land of the Gentlemen appears in fuller detail in the "Overseas Eastern Classic" chapter of the same Shanhaijing.

海外自東南陬至東北陬者…君子國在其北衣冠帶劍
食獸 使二大虑在旁 其人好讓不爭 有萬寧草 朝生夕死
The region extending from the southeastern corner to the northeastern corner overseas.
The Land of the Gentlemen lies to its north; they wear caps and gowns and bear swords.
They eat beasts and keep two great tigers at their side to command them.
Those people love to yield to one another and do not contend.
There is a rose of Sharon that blooms in the morning and falls in the evening.

The Land of the Gentlemen appears not only in the Shanhaijing but also in the "Treatise on Topography (地形訓)" of the Huainanzi.

東方有君子之國
自東南至東北方 有大人國
君子國 黑齒民 玄股民 毛民 勞民

In the east there is the Land of the Gentlemen,
and from the southeast to the northeast there is the Land of the Giants,
the Land of the Gentlemen, the Black-Toothed People, the Dark-Thighed People, the Hairy People, and the Toiling People.

This Land of the Gentlemen is similar, both chronologically and ideologically, to Hwanin, Hwanung, and Dangun, who are said to have restored the Budo of Mago. Lee Seung-gyu, who has studied the Land of the Gentlemen, says that Dangun corresponds to the Yellow Emperor of China in seven respects.^[20] Like Dangun, who was born of Ungnyeo, the Yellow Emperor is associated with the Youxiong clan, reigned for about 400 years, and ascended as an immortal after his reign. The 2,204 years that appear in the Samguk Yusa as the reign of Dangun also nearly correspond to the 2,400-year duration of the Land of the Gentlemen. Lee Seung-gyu says that in the Samguk Sagi and in literature predating the Samguk Sagi, the ancestor of Korea appears as the Yellow Emperor of China, and only from Iryeon's Samguk Yusa is he referred to as Dangun; therefore, seeking the origin of Korean ancient history from the "Yellow Emperor" corresponds better with ancient literature. Accordingly, in Chinese literature the ancient state of the Korean Peninsula appears as the Land of the Gentlemen rather than as Dangun. Gojoseon, appearing as the Land of the Gentlemen, shows a form that coincides with the Budo of the Budoji proposed by Im Hwan-yeong. In the "Xiaowen" chapter of the Guanzi (管子), the size of the Land of the Gentlemen and the ranks of the Land of the Gentlemen appear clearly.

昔者天子中立 地方千里
In ancient times the Son of Heaven stood in the center
and governed the regional domain.

The above passage shows that the term "Son of Heaven," which appears in the Guanzi, one of China's oldest documents, was first used in China in connection with the Land of the Gentlemen. The above passage shows that the supreme ruler in the center was called the Son of Heaven, the son of Heaven, that the center was placed in the middle while the regions formed the outer periphery, and that the standard for the central Son of Heaven was a thousand li. More concrete content on the regional organization of the Land of the Gentlemen, which enables the Budoji, appears in the "Wangzhi" chapter of the Book of Rites (禮記).

王者之制祿爵 公侯伯子男 凡五等
天子之四方千里 公候四方百里
伯七十里 子男五十里

In the system of the king, the ranks of emolument are the five grades of duke, marquis, earl, viscount, and baron;
the land of the Son of Heaven is a thousand li on each side,
the dukes and marquises a hundred li on each side,
the earls seventy li, and the viscounts and barons fifty li.

A system of dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons such as the above was a method of governing a territory exceeding 10,000 li. More concrete material regarding the size of the territory of the Land of the Gentlemen appears in the "Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin" of the Records of the Grand Historian (史記).

昔者五帝地方千里
其外侯服夷服諸侯或朝或否天子不能制
In ancient times, in the age of the Five Emperors, the land was a thousand li on each side;
beyond it, the feudal lords of the Hou and Yi zones
sometimes came to court and sometimes did not,
so that there were problems in the governance of the Son of Heaven.

That the above passage about the feudal lords beyond a thousand li amounts, as a whole, to 10,000 li appears in the "Basic Annals of the Five Emperors" of the Records of the Grand Historian.

万五千里 至于荒服 南撫 交阯北發西戎析枝 渠氐羌
北山戎 發 息慎 東長 烏夷 四海之內咸戴帝舜之功

The land was 5,000 li on each side, reaching to the Huang zone. To the south he pacified Jiaozhi and Beifa; to the west, the Rong, Xizhi, Qushou, Di, and Qiang; to the north, the Shanrong, Fa, and Xishen; to the east, the Chang and the Niaoyi—so that all within the four seas upheld the merit of Emperor Shun.

Ten thousand li, on today's map, reaches from Manchuria to Southeast Asia, north to south. The territory of Emperor Shun, who inherited the position of sovereign of the Land of the Gentlemen from the Yellow Emperor, was not at the level of a tribal state but a region surpassing the height of the Qing dynasty. In the "Shize Treatise" of the Huainanzi, it is stated that Taehao Fuxi ruled 12,000 li.

東方之極 自碣石山過朝鮮 貫大人之國 東至日出之次
木之地 青土樹木之野 太皞句芒之所司者 萬二千里

The eastern extremity: from Mt. Jieshi it passes Joseon and traverses the Land of the Giants, and eastward it reaches the place where the sun rises,
the land of the tree (the fusang tree), a plain of blue earth and trees. This is what Taehao and Goumang governed—12,000 li.

The 12,000 li was the country ruled by Fuxi, and it appears in the "Shize Treatise" of the Huainanzi that Shaohao Jintian, who was the son of the Yellow Emperor, ruled the 12,000-li Gaomang country to the west of that central country—that is, in the region of today's Egypt. The eastern tribal country of the same scale appears to have been ruled by Changyi, the second son of Xuanyuan and the father of Zhuanxu Gaoyang.

The people who traversed the 10,000-li ocean at that time are said to have been the blue-colored people, a maritime people. From Xuanyuan through the Five Emperors and on to the Xia, Shang, and Zhou, the blue-colored people ruled, and after the Han dynasty the blue color disappeared from the Chinese mainland; in Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula too, the blue-colored people disappeared as the mixed-blood Buyeo people took the initiative. The blue-colored people are now extinct, but their existence can be confirmed in old records and in the terracotta figures of the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin. Modern scholars hold that the Dongyi of the Shandong Peninsula in old records differ from the Dongyi of the northeastern direction represented by Goguryeo; it is clear that the old Dongyi were the blue-colored people and the northeastern Dongyi are distinguished as mixed-blood. Even so, since Koreans, being genealogically descendants of Xuanyuan, must take the blue-colored people as their ancestors, there is accordingly a problem in directly linking the Maek people, whose ancestors were the northern yellow-colored people, as our ancestors.

Not only is the territory of the Land of the Gentlemen, reaching 30,000 li, connected with the Mago tribe of the Budoji, but there is also a record in the Land of the Gentlemen that the Three Divine Mountains, related to Jeju mythology, sank into the Bohai Sea. Since the "Fengshan Treatise" of the Records of the Grand Historian says that the Three Divine Mountains are within the Bohai Sea, this means that they sank into the depths of the Bohai Sea.

自威 宣 燕昭 使人入海求蓬萊 方丈 瀛洲 此三神山者其在勃海中
Ever since King Wei and King Xuan (of Qi) and King Zhao of Yan, they sent people into the sea to seek Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou. These Three Divine Mountains are said to be within the Bohai Sea,

This appears to indicate that the capital of the central country sank into the Bohai Sea due to the great flood in the time of Emperor Yao. Xuanyuan's first capital was Zhuolu, and this too probably sank into the Yellow Sea. The capital of the early Land of the Gentlemen, which lay downstream of the Liaohe civilization, sank. The saying "mulberry fields become the blue sea" (great upheaval) is thought to derive from here. Since the reign of the Yellow Emperor is said to be 380 years and the period of Noah's flood 600 years, this too nearly corresponds.