Gwanggaeto Stele

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Gwanggaeto Stele
Detail of inscription
Korean name
Hangul:	광개토대왕비 also 호태왕비
Revised Romanization:	Gwanggaeto Daewangbi also Hotae Wangbi
McCune-Reischauer:	Kwanggaet'o Taewangbi also Hot'ae Wangbi

The stele of King Gwanggaeto of Goguryeo was erected in 414 by King Jangsu as a memorial to his deceased father. It is one of the major primary sources extant for the history of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, and supplies invaluable historical detail on his reign as well as insights into Goguryeo mythology.

It stands near the tomb of Gwanggaeto in what is today the city of Ji'an along the Yalu River in present-day northeast China, which was the capital of Goguryeo at that time. It is carved out of a single mass of granite, stands nearly 7 meters tall and has a girth of almost 4 meters.

The stele has also become a focal point of varying national rivalries in northeast Asia manifested in the interpretations of the stele's inscription and the place of the kingdom of Goguryeo in modern historical narratives. An exact replica of the Gwanggaeto Stele stands on the grounds of Seoul's National War Museum and the rubbed copies made in 1881 and 1883 are in the custody of China and the National Museum of Japan, respectively, testament to the stele's centrality in the history of Korea and Manchuria (The full text in classical Chinese is available at the wikisource zh:好太王碑文).

Contents 1 Rediscovery 2 Chronology of Gwanggaeto Wars 3 Debate over an ancient message 3.1 Conspiracy Theories 3.2 Interpretation 3.3 Relations to other chronicles and archaeological records 4 References 5 Other sources 6 See also

[edit] Rediscovery

The stele's location, in Ji'an in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, was key to its long neglect. Following the fall of Goguryeo in 668, and to a lesser extant the fall of its successor state Balhae in 926, the region drifted outside the sway of both Chinese and Korean geopolitics. Afterwards the region came under the control of numerous Manchurian states, notably the Jurchen and from the 16th century the Manchu. When the Manchu conquered China in 1644 and established their hegemony, they jealously guarded their ancestral homeland in Manchuria, prohibiting movement there by any non-Manchu peoples. This seclusion came to an end at the end of the 19th century, when the region was opened up for Han Chinese emigration. Manchuria thereafter became the coveted prize of vying regional powers, notably Russia and Japan for its rich natural resources and strategic location.

The opening up of Manchuria also resulted in the influx of Chinese and Japanese scholars, the latter often supplemented by Japanese spies traveling incognito to espy the region's fortifications and natural layout, prescient of a future of increased international rivalry. In the late 1800s many new arrivals to the region around Ji'an began making use of the many bricks and baked tiles that could be found in the region to build new dwellings. The curious inscriptions on some of these tiles soon reached the ears of Chinese scholars and epigraphers. Many were found to bear an inscription in ancient Chinese script reading:

"May the mausoleum of the Great King be secure like a mountain and firm like a peak."

It was around 1875 that an amateur Chinese epigrapher Guan Yueshan, scrounging for more samples of such tiles around Ji'an, discovered the mammoth stone stele of Gwanggaeto obscured under centuries of mud and overgrowth.

The clearing away of the stele's face invariably led to the damaging of its engraved text. Almost every inch of the stele's four sides were found be covered with Chinese characters (nearly 1800 in total), each about the size of a grown man's hand. The discovery soon attracted scholars from Japan, Russia, and France. In 1883 a young Japanese officer named Sakō Kageaki traveling in the guise of an itinerant Buddhist monk arrived in Ji'an. Sakō had been ordered from his last post in Beijing to proceed back to Japan via Manchuria and to make detailed observations there of the region's layout. It was while traveling through Liaoning that he apparently heard of the stele's recent discovery and managed to procure an ink rubbing of the stele's face to carry back to his homeland. It was scholars in Japan who were to make the first detailed analysis of the stele's ancient text.

[edit] Chronology of Gwanggaeto Wars

The stele records entire battles of Gwanggaeto's reign as triumphs. Recorded battles are following;(The full text in classical Chinese is available at the wikisource zh:好太王碑文)

• Article of year 395:
  • The King led troops to defeat Paryeo tribe(稗麗; believed to be a Khitan tribe) and acquired their livestock. He inspected the state and returned in triumph.
• Article of year 396:
  • Baekje and Silla were previously the subservient states of Goguryeo.
  • Since 391, there were certain conflicts related to Wa, Baekje, and Silla (see next chapter for its controversy).
  • At this year, the King led troops and conquered many Baekje castles. As the troop reached the capital, the Baekje king surrendered and swore to be a subject of Goguryeo. Gwanggaetto returned home with kidnapped Baekje prince and nobles.
• Article of year 398:
  • Assigned troops to conquer a tribe of Sushen(粛慎土谷) to capture 300 people. Since then, they have sent tribute to Goguryeo.
• Article of year 399:
  • Baekje broke previous promise and allied with Wa. Gwanggaeto advanced to Pyongyang. There he saw Silla's messenger who told him that Wa's troops were crossing the border for invasion, and asked Goguryeo for help. As Silla swore to be Goguryeo's subject, the King agreed to save them.
• Article of year 400:
  • The King sent 50,000 troops to save Silla. Wa's troops retreated just before the Goguryeo troops reached to Silla capital. They chased Wa's forces to a castle in Gaya. The troops in the castle soon surrendered.
  • (Following many disappeared letters; Some tracable letters include "Alla soldiers in defense(安羅人戍兵)", "Wa(倭)", and "collapse(潰)", and likely to be records of further battles against Gaya and Wa, but no details are available.)
  • Prince Bokho of Silla paid tribute to Goguryeo.
• Article of year 404:
  • Wa unexpectedly invaded southern border at Daifang. The King led troops from Pyongyang to prevail. Wa troops collapsed with enormous casualties.
• Article of year 407:
  • The King sent 50,000 troops and battled (letters mention to opponent state are disappeared). The triumphant Goguryeo force acquired enormous amount of military equipment, capturing six castles.
• Article of year 410:
  • East Buyeo ceased tribute to Goguryeo. The King led troops to conquer them. East Buyeo was surprised (and surrendered. Some letters are also disappeared in this passage). As they submitted to the King's august kindness, there was also a noble who followed the King to Goguryeo.

[edit] Debate over an ancient message

It soon became clear that the stele was dedicated to king Gwanggaeto of Goguryeo, who reigned 391-413 CE. It also became clear the stele was raised as a grand memorial epitaph to the celebrated monarch, whose empty tomb indeed lay nearby. Though historians and epigraphers still grapple with the interpretation of portions of the text, the inscription's general layout is clear. One face provides a retelling of the foundation legend of Goguryeo. Another provides terms for the maintenance of Gwanggaeto's tomb in perpetuity. It is the rest of the inscription, which provides a synopsis of Gwanggaeto's reign and his numerous martial accomplishments that is rife with the most controversy.

Japanese scholars soon became most intrigued over a passage describing the king's military campaigns for the sinmyo 辛卯 year of 391 (sinmyo being a year designator in the sexagenary cycle that characterizes the traditional Sino-oriented East Asian calendar). This most controversial portion of the stele's narrative has come to be known simply as the "sinmyo passage". Japanese scholars were excited by their first translation of the above text, reading in it a confirmation of heretofore unsubstantiated and quasi-legendary claims of a 4th century Japanese presence on the Korean peninsula as first presented in the 8th century Japanese history Nihon Shoki. The sinmyo passage as far as it is definitively legible reads thus (with highly defaced or unreadable characters designated by an X):

而 倭 以 辛 卯 年 來 渡 海 破 百 殘 X X [X斤 (新)] 羅 以 爲 臣 民

[edit] Conspiracy Theories

The authenticity of the rubbed copy by Sako was questioned by Zainichi Korean scholar Lee Jin-hui, who presented evidence in the early 1970's claiming that Sako had intentionally damaged the stele with lime to conform to the text of an old Japanese history record which says that Japan had a presence on the Korean peninsula in the 4th century (now referred to as the conspiracy theory "Seokhwaedobujakjeonseol" (석회도부작전설/石灰塗付作戰說) or operation of painting lime on the surface) rather than Korea having one in Japan.^{[citation needed]} In 1981, academic studies conducted both in Japan and Korea (led by Lee Hyung-gu) began putting forth the argument (based on the irregularity of the Chinese character style and grammar (字體, 字型, and 結構) that using lime, Sako had defaced the Simyo passage by making 後 into 倭, and 不貢因破 into 來渡海破; thus, if altered in this way, the subject of the Simyo passage became Goguryeo, as the monument itself had been made to commemorate Goguryeo's victories.^{[citation needed]} There have also been discoveries that Sako, prior to dispatching his rubbed copy of the Gwangaeto Stele, distributed a false clay stub he claimed to be a duplicate of a part of the stele, thus arousing Japanese historians to advocate the "retaking" of Korea and "repeating" history. The response in Japan to such new revelations was mixed; some scholars adopted the new theory, while others claimed it to be part of a wider plan to further discredit the validity of Japanese historical research.

As studies continued, several other rubbed copies were discovered that had been made by Chinese previous to Sakō. Xu Jianxin of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who inspected over fifty surviving copies of the stele, was one of those found was a copy predating Sakō's. He concluded that there was no evidence that the Japanese officer had intentionally damaged any of the stele characters (Even so, the stone inscription is ambiguous as to who conquered who). Today, most Chinese and Japanese scholars discredit the intentionally damaged stele theory based on the study of the stele itself^[1][2] and the pre–Sakō rubbed copy.

In the project of writing a common history textbook, Kim Tae-Sik of Hongik University (Korea)^[3] and Kosaku Hamada of Kyushu University (Japan)^[4] reported the interpretation of Gwanggaeto Stele, and neither of them adopted Lee's theory in their interpretations.

[edit] Interpretation

Most Japanese scholars, interpreted the passage (brackets designating a "reading into" the text where the character is not legible):

"And in the sinmyo year the Wa (Japanese) came and crossed [the sea] and defeated Baekje, [unknown], and [Sil]la and made them subjects."

Many Korean scholars reject this interpretation of Japan's conquering Baekje and Silla on the basis of evidence that cites the contrary. It is difficult to tell when sentences begin or end because of the absence of punctuation and the necessity of reading into the text via context.^[5] Furthermore, the subjects Baekje and Silla are not recognizably mentioned in the passage; only the first character for "Baekje" (百) is noted, and even the supposed first character of Silla is not complete (only 斤 as opposed to 新). Furthermore, the character "jan" (殘) was a character used derogatively by Goguryeo in place of the character "jae" (濟) in Baekje's official name (This may have denoted wishful thinking on the part of Goguryeo that another nation came and conquered Baekje). Thus, when taking in account the passage as it reads when taking into consideration the major absence of characters and lack of punctuation, the passage reads:

And in the sinmyo year the Wa (Japanese) crossed the sea. (Abbreviation of someone's title) made (?) subjects of (?)

However, further analysis of the passage is that Goguryeo, not Japan, crossed the sea and defeated Baekje or Goguryeo crossed the sea and defeated the Wa. This agrees with historical records in Korea. In the case of this interpretation, and the abbreviation of King Gwanggaeto's title in the passage, the passage states:

And in the sinmyo year the Wa crossed the sea. King Gwanggaeto (abbreviation) made Silla and Baekje subjects of (?).

Scholars point out several facts that put in doubt the traditional Japanese interpretation of the sinmyo passage. Firstly, the term Wa at the time the stele was made did not solely refer to people from Japan but could also refer to the people from southern Korean, particularly from the Gaya Confederacy.^[6][7] Additionally, Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo were all centralized states by the time of the stele's inscription with experienced armies, exemplified by Baekje's defeat of the Goguryeo army in 371 while the fledgling Japanese Yamato state was just consolidating its new territory in the Kinki region of Japan around the period mentioned by the sinmyo passage.^[8]

[edit] Relations to other chronicles and archaeological records

There has been no archaeological or recorded evidence uncovered in Korea or Japan, such as boats or weapons, of a massive Japanese army. The Samguk Sagi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) and the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms) make no mention of a Japanese invasion that defeated and subjugated Silla, Baekje, or Gaya, and rather cites the fact that the Japanese were defeated when they retreated to Gaya upon pursuit by Goguryeo troops. The Nihon Shoki (Chapter 9: Okinaga Tarashihime no Mikoto (Regent Empress Jingu)) records of a Japanese invasion that devastated Silla at the end of 4th century before being pursued to the Gaya Confederacy by Goguryeo troops and routed there.^[9] The Samguk Sagi's Silla bongi^[10] and Baekje bongi^[11] record instances of those countries sending their crown princes to Wa as pledges. The Nihon Shoki also makes claims of tribute from Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo and a colony at Gaya. However, these records have been rejected by Korean scholars and are generally regarded by most Japanese historians as Japanese historical distortions motivated by an imperialist and revisionist mindset that began with the Meiji Restoration. The following are the verified facts as well as inconsistencies found in the Japanese historical records: 1)all of the three Korean kingdoms boasted highly centralized states by the time of the sinmyo passage, making the claim in Nihon Shoki that Korean kingdoms paid tribute to the still-emerging Yamato kingdom seem unlikely; 2) there exists an inconsistency in the usage of era titles (120 years, two sexagenary cycles), and there is a high probability that the Japanese imperial family in the 8th century fabricated family and national history as rationalization and glorification of their own ancestors' achievements (see Nihon Shoki: Exaggeration of Lengths of Reign),^[4] as well as to bring their nation to a status on par with the more senior civilizations in China and Korea.

The relationship between Gaya and Yamato Japan is recognized today to have been centered on trade, or more specifically the Japanese importation of Gaya iron-working techniques and iron crafts. The legend of Empress Jingu's conquest of southern Korea, otherwise from being irrelevant to the sinmyo passage (Jingu is said to have reigned in the 3rd century, while the Sinmyo passage falls along the lines of the 5th century) has also been rejected by most historians today as a myth inserted into the otherwise highly detailed Nihon Shoki as a way to fill in the time gap between the reigns of asserted early Japanese emperors and as a way to settle scores with Silla, which later unified the three kingdoms and enjoyed rather rocky relations with the Japanese state.

The question is to be asked as to why a monument honoring the triumphs of a Goguryeo king singles out a Japanese victory as worthy of mention on the stele (if one follows the Japanese interpretation).^[5] Generally, Japanese scholars points out that the rhetoric of inscription describes Gwanggaeto's battle as "overcoming the trying situation". Yukio Takeda claims that "Wa's invasion" was used as such situation when describing battles against Baekje. Many Japanese scholars also agree that Wa's power was more or less exaggerated by Goguryeo to illustrate the triumph of the King, and the sinmyo passage does not necessarily proves the power of Wa in Korean peninsula of the late 4th century. On the other hand, they generally reject the Korean interpretation because the stele says Baekje was previously a state subservient to Goguryeo before the simmyo passage and that recording the conquest into Baekje would result tautology in this section of the stele. However, Korean scholars generally refute this claim by pointing to ancient records (chiefly the Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa), which make clear that before King Gwanggaeto, Baekje held out well against its northern neighbor. Therefore, the statement in the stele that claims Baekje was a Goguryeo subject before the sinmyo passage would be propaganda on the part of Goguryeo; thus the conquest of Baekje would not be redundant.

As national pride works in the debate, it is currently almost impossible to have a same historical view in this topic among the Koreans and Japanese. This disagreement affected the project of writing a common history textbook by scholars from Korea, Japan and China.

[edit] References

1. ^ Takeda, Yukio. "Studies on the King Gwanggaeto Inscription and Their Basis". Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko. 47(1989):57-87.
2. ^ Xu, Jianxin. "An Investigation of Rubbings from the Stele of Haotai Wang". Tokyodo Shuppan, 2006.
3. ^ Kim, Tae-Sik. Korean-Japanese Relationships in 4th Century; based on Wa Troops Issues in Gwanggaeto Stele. The Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation. 2005.[1]
4. ^ ^{a b} Hamada, Kosaku. Japanese-Korean Relationships in 4th Century. The Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation. 2005.[2]
5. ^ ^{a b} Lee, Kenneth B. Korea and East Asia: The Rise of a Phoenix. Westport: Praeger Publishing. 1997, p. 33.[3]
6. ^ Lee, Kenneth B. Korea and East Asia: The Rise of a Phoenix. Westport: Praeger Publishing. 1997, p. 34.[4]
7. ^ Lewis, James B. Korea and Globalization. London: Routledge Curzon. 2002.[5]
8. ^ Japan: Profile of a Nation. Tokyo: Kodansha America, Inc. 1999.[6]
9. ^ 日本書紀 巻九神功皇后摂政前紀仲哀天皇九年 冬十月己亥朔辛丑 爰新羅王波沙寐錦 即以微叱己知波珍干岐爲質 仍齎金銀彩色及綾羅縑絹 載于八十艘船 令從官軍 是以 新羅王常以八十船之調 貢于日本國 其是之縁也 於是高麗 百濟二國王 聞新羅收圖籍降於日本國 密令伺其軍勢 則知不可勝 自來于營外 叩頭而款曰 從今以後 永稱西蕃 不絶朝貢 故因以定内官家 是所謂之三韓也 皇后從新羅還之.
10. ^ 三國史記 卷第三 新羅本紀第三 實聖尼師今 元年(402) 三月 與倭國通好 以奈勿王子未斯欣爲質.
11. ^ 三國史記 卷第二十五 百済本紀第三 腆支王 元年(405) 腆支王 或云直支 梁書名映 阿之元子 阿在位第三年 立爲太子 六年 出質於倭國 十四年 王薨 王仲弟訓解攝政 以待太子還國 季弟禮殺訓解 自立爲王 腆支在倭聞訃 哭泣請歸 倭王以兵士百人衛送 既至國界.

[edit] Other sources

• Chavannes, Edouard. "Les Monuments de l’Ancien Royaume Coréen de Kao-Keou-Li". T’oung Pao 2 9(1908):236-265.
• Courant, Maurice. "Stele Chinoise de Royaume de Koguryô". Journal Asiatique, March-April 1898:210-238.
• Grayson, James H. (1977). "Mimana, A Problem in Korean Historiography". Korea Journal 17:8:65-69. [7]
• Hatada, Takashi [translated by V. Dixon Morris]. "An Interpretation of the King Kwanggaet’o Inscription". Korean Studies 3:1-17.
• Im, Ki-chung. "Thoughts on the original stone rubbing of the Hot'aewang stele in the collection of Beijing University." Journal of Japanology, No. 14 (Nov. 1995):194-216.
• Kane, Daniel C. "Enigma in Stone: a Monument in Northeastern China fuels a Modern Debate over Ancient History." Archaeology Magazine (March-April 2002):60-66.
• Kim, Joo-Young. "Jian: Vestiges of the Koguryô Spirit". Koreana Magazine 10 (1)(Spring 1996):64-69. [8]
• Kim, J.Y. "The Kwanggaet’o Stele Inscription." In Ian Nish, ed. Contemporary European Writing on Japan: Scholarly Views from Eastern and Western Europe. Kent, England: Paul Norbury Publishers, 1988.
• Mohan, Pankaj N. "Rescuing a Stone from Nationalism: A Fresh Look at the Kwanggaeto Stele of Koguryo." Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies, 1 (2004): 89-115.
• Pai, Hyung Il. Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 2000.
• Suematsu, Yasukazu. "The Development of Studies of the King Hao-t’ai Inscription: with Special Reference to the Research of Mizutani TeijirÇ". Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko. 38(1980):1-37.
• Szczesniak, Bolesaw. "The Kotaio Monument". Monumenta Nipponica 7 1/2(January 1951):242-272.

[edit] See also

• List of Korea-related topics
• Korean nationalism
• Three Kingdoms of Korea
• History of Korea
• Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo
• stele