Samurang

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According to certain organizations and practitioners of Haidong Gumdo, a Korean martial art, the Samurang (士武郞) were warriors from Goguryeo who later played a role in the creation of the Japanese samurai caste. There is, however, no historical evidence that supports their existence and the latter claim is likely based on a purposely created false etymology. In some countries "Samurang" has been registered as a trademark by the World Haidong Gumdo Federation.

1 History according to the World Haidong Gumdo Federation
2 Controversy
3 References
4 See also

[edit] History according to the World Haidong Gumdo Federation

According to the World Haidong Gumdo Federation, ^[1]^[2]^[3] the Samurang were a group of elite warriors in the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo, originating around 300 AD. They were allegedly created by General Yu Yu and trained in the martial arts, with a heavy emphasis on swordsmanship and the concepts of patriotism, filial piety and respecting the elderly. In the centuries to come they grew to become an enormously powerful military force, and also served as military advisors when Goguryeo was at its peak. Their era supposedly ended around 670 AD, when political changes stripped them of governmental support. Some of them are said to have withdrawn to further their studies at a dojang in the vicinity of the Sam Ji Lake in the Baekdu Mountains, where a master named Sul Bong continued to educate them in the martial arts. Samurang was supposedly a title given only to the best of his pupils and the World Haidong Gumdo Federation thus uses the title in its grading system. Samurang is also the name given to the dojang in each country where the highest ranked master is teaching the martial art (this is usually the first dojang to be established). The federation also claims that after being disbanded some of the Samurang settled in Japan where the name changed into Samurai due to pronunciation difficulties in Japanese, this claim is not, however, supported by mainstream historians.

[edit] Controversy

There are no known historical documents that would lend credence to the federation's claims. No written records mention the Samurang, which would be highly unlikely if the alleged group really existed as the federation claims. In fact there is no evidence that the word “Samurang” was used prior to the twentieth century. In addition, the association of the Baekdu Mountains with Goguryeo suggests that the story is of recent origin, since it was in the 20th century that the mountain on the Sino-Korean border became a symbol of Korean nationalism.

Elementary knowledge of historical Chinese phonology and Japanese suggests that the samurai connection is unlikely to be true. Haidong Gumdo coined the word samurang by combining the three Chinese characters 士, 武 and 郞 so that it sounded similar to samurai in modern Korean. However, this putative compound is pronounced *shiburō in modern Sino-Japanese reading and something like *tʃiburau in old Japanese. Both are quite different from samurai.

Since the etymology of samurai is clear (see Samurai#Etymology_of_samurai_and_related_words), Japanese people are unlikely to accept the purported etymology. However, the story has gained some undue credence among some Koreans.