Chapter 1: The Birthplace of Ancient Korea (古朝鮮)

 

Session 2: How to Confirm the New Theory

 

The main objective of this article is the fact-finding; that is the backbone of history. Fact-finding is the domain of forensic science, research scientists, and the physicians alike who utilize every possible means.

 

Material and Method

1. Research material: Attempts were made to scan all the pertinent records found through the https://ctext.org/zh (中國哲學書電子化計劃) and other digital libraries such as Baidu of China. Also limited number of Korean historiographies were included as references. Pronunciation of ideographs were based upon 康熙字典, 漢典, and Daum dictionary of Korea.

Romanization is the window to project the ancient history of NEA to the western world. It is on going problem for the scholars. They have to understand the way of ancient scriptures being generated under the Liùshū principle by a core group of scholars. They didn’t have tenses, concepts of grammar, but only lined up compound ideographs with PLCs and PSMCs. Very often, same logograms do have different meanings and pronunciation. The same phenomenon has been described with different characters and meanings without a set of rules.

Another important matter is the nature of human beings. They move around. Newcomers occupied the original birthplace of the YRVC, where the Tungusic language–spoking people used to live. The newcomer generated ancient scriptures with the knowledge and skill of the local people. Lots of names have a strong connection with the Korean history. It is new finding and one of key elemts. Hence, the Korean way of pronunciation is used on those names to build the bridge by connecting the pertinent ideographs.

 

1. Method: The following are summaries of the proposed methodology.

The interpretation of ancient historiographies relies on the way of study, the set of techniques, and established guidelines. Historians used primary sources and other evidences of events that had taken place in a past specific time and place. It is known that the geographic terrain had changed since the beginning of written history. Yet certain natural events had progressed slowly over a long time period. Those events couldn’t be recognized in a short period of the human life span. Hence, it couldn’t be recorded, but revealed through the archeological excavation. One example is the animal. Elephants and rhinos had been in the Shang territory, but they disappeared. It is equivalent to the rapid vs slow progressing health deterioration. As smoking was a social norm, chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) was very common. They considered it as a natural phenomenon of aging. Historically, all slowly progressing heath deterioration was considered as a natural phenomenon. Now we know some of the culprits.

Connecting the scattered pieces of ideographs to draw the bridge from the past to the current location is essential to revive the lost history of Old Joseon. The epic flood is well documented. Although the fall of Liang mountain (梁山) nearby the Yellow River and few earthquakes are recorded, amount and direction of rain water passing through are not well rcorded.  Current terrain confirms that bottle neck of Yellow River ,known as Hangu-Pass had been widen, old wet land dried out, and changed to a fertile arable land.

Majority of events had been out of reach from the original Nine Provinces and couldn’t be recorded. Later, historians transplanted the recorded event to the previously unknown newly discovered territory. All the records aren’t equal. The first step is finding out the original record. Hence, the size and location of the original Nine Provinces should be considered to confirm the birthplace of Old Joseon. The second step is the confirmation of the place and territory where the scholar had lived and left the record. For this reason, it is unavoidable to rely on some degree of speculation; it ought to be under reasonable assumption.

Reasonable assumption is taboo for scientists. Yet reasonable assumption is essential for the study of social sciences, studying of NEA history in particular. It is equivalent to hypotheses for the research scientist and rationalism in the subject of epistemology. Assumption is equivalent to the planning for the fishing expedition or to formulating strategies.

Modern technology provides convincing evidence for the fishermen to catch fish by learning the life cycle and behavior of specific fish in interest and setting the traps to catch them. Those concepts are all included as an analogy of wide-angle panoramic motion picture and search by utilizing every possible means.

 

Logic Is the Tool for the Search and Research

Logic is well established in the western culture in every sects of sciences including the law, but not implied in the Chinese culture. One unique aspect of Chinese logic is the failure of nomenclature.

Gongsun Long (公孫龍: c. 325–250 BC) wrote the dialectic analysis of the question, the phrase 白馬非馬, literally “White horse is not horse” in the section White Horse Dialogue.^[1]  He was an eloquent speaker. They considered him as the pioneer to the school of names (名家), which is better to be interpreted as the school of nomenclature.^[2] They considered him and Yan Zi (晏子: c. 578–500 BC) who left the Yanzi chunqiu as outstanding debaters.^[3]

He defined that horse馬者 is a name of matter, white color 白者 is a description of phenomena. Description of phenomena is not a matter.  Hence White horse is not 非the horse.

He misused the same phonetics to different ideographs: 名色 to 命色, 无 (母) 馬 to 無馬, and so on. He said; clarification of elusive names is in turmoil, hence the priority of the matter is the theory of keeping bái in place stated in the opening remark as evidence.^[4] Ideogram “白; Bai or Bo” in Chinese is read “Xi or Hi in Japanse and “흰 백, Hi-In or Heen” in Korean and interpreted as “Color of the west, one of title, white, bright, pure, unblemished”. Physical connotation also has been in use as in confession(告白), or monologue(獨白).  Descrition of the phenomena were all depend upon the location and period of time, distance matter of the soure.

 

There is a phenomena, but the origin of physical matter (形) couldn’t be defined. Some of them nearby, such as torch. Some of them are far away, such as the sun, moon, and stars. A far away object was described with the ideogram “xuán玄; 亠，幺”, that is a compound ideogram of a tiny dot over the far away horizon. Korean read this ideogram as “검을 현, Geom-Eul-Hyeon” similar to the black color “黑;    hēi hè by Chinese,which is the same phonetics of white or the sun in Korean.  검을 흑, Geom-Eul-Heuk.”   Yellow“黃; huáng in Chinese. Hi in Japense. 黃 누를 or 누루 황 Nurl-Hwang in Korean as in Nurhaci (愛新覺羅 努爾哈赤;1559-1626). It is also the description of phenomena as raising the toruch up to the sealing 百 drived from the ideograph 白 is an imitation (象形) of torch (𦣺 𤼽).^[5]

The ideograph “非[fēi] in Chinese, Hi in Japanese, Bi or Bee in Korean” and “白; bái bó in Chinese. Baek in Korean” are the same phenomenon describing “degree and effect of sunlight or beam of light, which create opposite phenomena to the darkness” in Korean.

They could not put the concept of causality and event at the right time and place. Hence, the very basic of “dialectic analysis” is not established.

The ideographs 白 and 非 are equal to an emptiness. logogram “叚:[Xiá] in Chinese,  Bil Ga meaning empty or Ha as in the rosy cloud Ha (霞, 노을 Noeul in Korean), with many radical such as 假, 瑕.^[6]

The ideograph Bi (非) in the word 非馬 appeared as an adjective before Gongsun Long in the Chun Qiu Zuo Zhuan.^[7] This adjective was one of many PLCs meaning “flawless, sparkling, beautiful, beam of light,” which could be interpreted as Bit or Banjjak as 반짝 반짝 빛나는 별 “Twinkle twinkle little stars” in the Korean word.

 

The dictionary has that the phonetic bi (譬, 빛) is northerners’ word for metaphorical expression.^[8] The phonetic Bi brings up opposite phenomena of darkness, which has been described with ideograph bái (白; Baek in Korean, 흰백) and being read as Huin-baek. Once the door was opened, the opposite phenomena of darkness appeared. Many logograms have been used to describe the degree of darkness disappearing, such as Huan, Hwan, Balda, Bakda, Huinda, and so on. They all connected the logogram imitating the torch 白 to the phenomena as seen after open the door or screen. It is also related to the stars. The Northern Star has been used as a symbol of Starlight. The ideograph 北běi, bak, indicating the north (北方改比方), high up (上), originated from the light of the northern star.

Ideographs referring the folk song of northerners (邶風) was changed to 𨚍風, which has the meaning of bright star and the old Baek-ik territory, Joseon^[9].  There are many bright objects in the night sky.^[10] They named a star 箕星after wellknown deceased leader. Gija (箕子) is one example.  same phonetics had been used as the family name 解, 費氏: 해, 해빛 of northerners, Goguryeo, and the state of Wei.

 

By applying PLCs with PSMCs, it ended up ironical result; White color is Black color similar to the Yellow color. It is the irony of Chinese logic that Gongson Long raised, the dialectic analysis of the question.  Reasoning is above the Chinese logic.

Irony has been applied and been in use. It is the basis of color selection for the Ritual Service both in the east and middle eastern culture. Korean used white garment, but Zhou dynasty adapted the black, Chinese emperor use Yellow garment.

The Gongsun Long doctrine has been used in the debate between the Marquis of Yanhpyeong (襄平侯),Gongson Gang(公孫康; 204 – ?) and other warlords from the south and north at that time. The northern representative used the words 假, 白 to claim they were the legitimate ruler mandated by Heaven 天子in the Liaodong Region. This episode was recorded in the Song era Zizhi Tongjian.^[11]

 

The ideographs 白 and 非 are the description of cause and effect; that is, the opposite phenomena of darkness and could be described with many other PLCs and phrases. There are three matters on the sky and one “火; [huǒ] in Chenese,  불 화 Bu-el Hwa in Korean and Hi in Japanese whih is same pnonetics as the sun and white color” on the earth that keep darkness away. They considered those as an evidence of a super being and worshipped them. The object being described with ideogram 神 (spirit, Gami in Japanese) shares the same phonetics of many logogram—震, 娠, 振, 眞, 陳, 秦, 晉, 伸, 愼, 辛, 信, 晨, 脤, 迅, and even the logogram referring to pregnancy. Yes, they believed that pregnancy was the result of sunbeam going into the body (身) of a lady. Koreans call the sun Hae, which could be described with many PLCs, such as 解, 亥, 海, 奚, 孩, and so on. Koreans used to call a baby as Ah-hae (兒孩), hae-dong (孩童), literally “a baby boy of the sun and atomic nucleus” as haek (核), which all have the meaning and phonetics of the sun.

 

 

Converting Oral History to Written One

The Eurasian Steppe people read the bright objects in the sky as  Jin/Shin (晨), which Koreans read as Byeol-Jin. The leader of the sun-worshipping tribe was recorded Dan (旦, 桓) or Du/Do (兜) by them.^[12] But southerners used the PSMCs xi (斯) derived from xie (解, 亥) as derogative semantics, literally “leaving or unworthy.” The steppe people invented a method of sending messages to a person far away by scratching marks on a piece of wood. That is the compound ideograph 刻, 契, 猰, 鍥, which have been read under many different sounds and tones, such as qì qiè xiè and so on. The same phonetics had been described with many PLCs. The primitive ideographs were invented by the steppe people who worshipped the bright objects in the sky. Their stronghold was in the north and came down and settled around the Xiechi. They were described with the logograms 解, 奚, 亥, which Korean read as Hae, same as the sun. As the Zhou (周) clan came into the west of Hangu Pass, they enslaved the locals and forced them to engrave many logograms. Western Zhou converted oral history in the YRVC to the written one. Some of them still has the meaning of ”scratch (刻, 글다, 契) with a small knife(刂) by the Hae (亥, sun) worshipping people.” Those ideographs, 解, 奚, 亥, referring to the locals who lived around the Xiechi, had been used under derogatory connotation.

They applied a derogatory name to the local leader as 竊帝, literally the guy who steal the crown. Political revolt emerged around the Xiechi region. Son son Rong Wu (禹) took the leadership from Baek-yi, the founding father of Old Joseon, and called him the founder (帝禹夏后, 帝啟) of the controversial Xia (夏, Ha) Dynasty.^[13] The ideographs 夏后 appears once in the Shijing as the last tyrant of the Xia Dynasty.^[14] The Zhou clan mobilized the local Yaemaek people (濊貊, 隸) in the Shanxi Province and used their know-how to build the Western Zhou in an alien territory.

They grafted the mystical ruler Gaoxin (高辛) as the ancestor of Emperor Yao, also known as Fangxun. The western Jin scholar Huangfu Mi (皇甫謐: 215–282) had compiled 帝王世紀 and described that Gaoxin (高辛) was after GaoYang by citing 帝王世紀, literally “chronicle of emperors.” It doesn’t make sense. The chronicle of emperors, that Huangfu Mi cited, was in a scripture before him.^[15] Most likely, he referred to the bamboo scripts unearthed in 279 from the tomb of King Xiang of Wei (魏襄王;？–296 BC). The whole contents of the bamboo scripts were the 蓋魏國之史書, literally “history of Hae high nation.” The logogram 蓋 has derived from the hédàn (盍旦), referring to the phenomena of bright sunrise in the morning. He and Sama Qian used the same local legend about the genealogy of the sun-worshipping tribe.

 

The nomadic steppe people came from the west to the site of Hongshan culture in the Mongolia and Manchurian borders claimed that Zhuanxu Gao Yang (高陽氏) is their ancestor. They select the ultimate leader, the King of Kings. The new comer named him as Sky Poison 天毒 lived by the Xiechi.^[16] Zhuanxu Gao Yang is the father of Giant Fish and the grandfather of Wu the Great. He invented the first calendar (初作曆象) known as the calendar of Zhuanxu (顓頊歷), which was used by the Qin Dynasty.^[17] Ancient Koreans used the Zhuanxu calendar, and this still remains in the Korean culture. They cerebrate October 3 as the Sky Opening Day (開天節), which is derived from the Zhuanxu Calendar and the most joyful day in old Korean culture.

Tong Jian has that the writing system of Dong-yi in general is similar to (大抵並同) the Chinese one.^[18] It is apparent that the alien Zhou clan, who came from the east of Hangu Pass to the cradle of YRVC, adapted the local writing system and engraved onto metal or stone (金石文), which is the origin of the written history. They altered the original logograms to other PLCs of PSMCs.

Chen Shou (陳壽 233–297) used the ideogram 假, referring the faraway sky in the Dong-yi section. One example is the phrase 拜假倭王, which is literally “pay respect to the false queen of Japan.” It doesn’t make sense. He luckily reiterated the same phenomena with a different phrase, 魏倭王卑彌呼, in the Book of Wei (魏書), which is a section of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, not the Book of Wei (魏書) that Monk Il-yeon used to reveal the legend of Old Joseon and is not available now. It is apparent that those two ideographs, 假 and魏, in front of 倭王 were the same, meaning “far above the sky.” He used them as a PLC of Korean the word 해, 하, as in hanul-im (heavenly father), and 위, as “high above,” to describe as faraway above from the sky or heaven.

Korean dictionaries interpreted the ideogram 假with many meanings. One of them is 빌가.empty Ga, 멀하 far away Ha, which is not in the Chinese dictionary. Koreans still use the word Hanul (한울, 하늘; 아해) very often. It means “from the heaven or high up in the sky” (immortal lady from the far away [empty 빌] sky, sent white snow) as seen (snow falling from the faraway sky. 하늘 나라 선녀님들이) in the Korean children folksong. Many different ideograms have been used to described the northerner as 北狄, 白狄,白翟, 蓋狄, 蓋公, 畢, and so on as seen in Shijing and Shiji.^[19]

The white garment was their (北狄, 白狄) formal atired and got the nick name (白衣民族), which is connotation of ethnic Korean.

 

The logogram Hae (sun, 解) was the royal family name of Baekjae and Goguryeo) as seen in the salty lake Xiechi (解池) in the Shanxi Province. They replaced Hae (sun, sunray) with same PLC 亥, meaning “the hog or hesitant servant. They used many derogatory names to the locals. Hog is one of connotations. Other PSMCs of hog, such as 豳風, 琢, 遼東之豕, and so on, had been used.

The current dictionary interprets the logogram “非” as “not, negative, non-,” which is pronounced bi in Korean and used as a family name of the Baek-ik (江. 裴. 非子, 伯益之後) and so on.^[20] Locals used the original pronunciation 햇빛 as their family name as Haebi-Ci (解枇氏) in North China Plain. This two-syllable name was changed to one-syllable family names such as 解氏 and 北氏 of Goguryeo, converted to Ko Choe (高, 崔) by keeping the meaning.

Some of Baek-ik descendants remained in the North China Plain and carried on the family names such as 枇氏, 北氏. Confucius and others went into the temple of Bi clan (費氏之宮), that is written in the Family Sayings of Confucius.^[21]

The grand historian eluded the fact that Shùn (虞舜) had relinquished the throne to Bi-dae. Ideographs 北人無擇, 不台, 弗台, 弗嗣 are all other PSMCs of Baek-ik.^[22] Baek-ik’s descendants settled in Manchuria. The ideograph 台; zhì chí yí; 臺 has many meanings. It is derived from someone conducting flood control (治; zhì chí yí) on top of the platform by the Xiechi. It is the same phonetics and location where Dangun Wanggeom Baek-ik (伯益) was conducted. The same tribal leader was named King Wie-gu-Dae (尉仇台) of Buyeo. The capital was described as Skeleton Capital.  Who would use the ideogram enemy in the title of the king and skeleton in the name of capital? It is obvious. Chen Shou dislike them.

 

The essence of irony came from the misinterpretation of PLCS to phono-semantic matching character (PSMCs) and branched out too many new logograms. During that process of changing hands, a stroke of certain logograms had been changed or mixed up to other ideographs such as 啓：啟, 島, 鳥, 烏 and 暨. 曁. Those are a few examples.

By looking back the way Chinese debated any issues in dispute, the essence of argument is embedded in the ireographs. Therefore, it is fair to claim that Korean ancestors spoke Tungusic language. The mountain recorded as 太伯山頂 in the Book of Wei is the Khan Tengri in the west of China. The Feudal State Wei has never been in the Korean peninsula, 太伯山 couldn’t be in the Korean peninsula.

 

To apply the logics to settle any disputes in NEA, three key elements are in play: logogram, lexicology, and nomenclature.

Because of complexity of Chinese hermeneutics, they couldn’t come up with clear nomenclature. Those are only a few examples. There are many other evidences in the ancient scriptures that could be assessed as an innocent mistake or intentional change.

Was the Chinese really unable to resolve any dispute? Didn’t they have western style of logic? Answer is No. They knew it, but didn’t clarify the nomenclature for them to manipulate as needed.

 

The lexicology of ancient Chinese scriptures needs to be reexamined under a new stance. It is imperative to understand the Korean language to interpret ancient scriptures right. Koreans who had been neglected ought to involve academic discussion in Chinese hermeneutics.

[1]. 公孫龍子 白馬論: 曰：馬者，所以命形也；白者，所以命色也。命色者非命形也。

[2]. 公孫龍子:https://ctext.org/gongsunlongzi/bai-ma-lun. English translation:

[3]. 韓詩外傳: 齊景公遣晏子南使楚。 謂左右曰：「齊遣晏子使寡人之國，幾至矣。」

[4]. 公孫龍子: 馬者, 所以命形也；白者，所以命色也。命色者非命形也.「白馬非馬」

[5]. 白：〔古文〕𦣺𤼽。西方色也。隂用事物色白。《釋名》啓也。如水啓時色也。

[6]. 叚：借也。或作𠭊，通作假。《集韻》何加切，音瑕。姓也。《春秋傳》晉有叚嘉。

[7]. 春秋左傳 宣公二年: 宋人以兵車百乘，文馬百駟，以贖華元于鄭，華元逃歸，立于門外,

[8].譬：《唐韻》匹至切. 《說文》諭也。《徐曰》猶匹也。匹而諭之也。北方改比方.

[9]. 學林 : 蓋詩以十篇為什周南 召南十四篇𨚍十九篇鄘十篇衞十篇王十篇鄭二十一篇齊十一篇魏七篇唐十二篇. 𠨒：《玉篇》與邑部𨚍義別. 《邶風》者，蓋邶人述其意而作.

[10]. 又髙麗姓,北唐子眞治京氏,易丗本云晉有髙人隱於北唐因以爲氏『北』古『別』字

[11].資治通鑑: 曹操表公孫度為武威將軍，封永寧鄉侯。公孫康遣使韓忠假峭王單于印綬.

[12]. 尚書 : 驩兜曰:「都！共工方鳩僝功。」 流共工于幽洲 放驩兜于崇山,竄三苗于三危.

[13]. 啓：開，發，別，刻也。《說文》敎，俗作啟. 《書·堯典》啓明。《傳》啓，開也。

[14]. 毌追，夏后氏之道也. 夏后啟之臣曰孟涂. 夏后開即啟，避漢景帝諱云.

[15]. 帝王世紀: 帝顓頊高陽氏.《帝王世紀》曰：顓頊, 黃帝之孫. 帝嚳, 高辛氏, 帝嚳.

[16].史記三家注 : 李斐曰：「纛，毛羽幢也。在乘輿車衡左方上注之。」蔡邕曰「以犛牛尾為之，如斗。小人以野，故殷人承之以敬. 屋左纛. 乃乘黃屋左纛，稱制，與中國侔。

[17].《唐風》無巳太康，職思其居. 詩經 蟋蟀: 今我不樂、日月其除。無已大康、職思其居

[18]. 通典序略: 昔堯命羲仲宅嵎夷，曰暘谷，蓋日之所出也。 古之肅慎，宜即魏時挹婁.

[19]. 詩經: 謂天蓋高、不敢不局。謂地蓋厚、不敢不蹐. 蓋文字者，經藝之本，王政之始.

[20]. 廣韻 裴：非：不是也，責也，違也，亦姓風俗通有非子伯益之後. 斐斐文章

[21]. 孔子家語: 孔子以公與季孫、叔孫，入於費氏之宮，豋武子之臺. 唯費氏經與古文同

[22]. 台: 臺: 舜讓于德，弗嗣. 史記 :唐堯遜位，虞舜不台. 《前漢·地理志》元菟郡上殷台縣.