The 1,500-Year-Old Love Story Between a Persian Prince and a Korean Princess that Could Rewrite History

More than a thousand years before the first European explorer reached Korea’s shores, the Persian Empire was writing love stories about Korean princesses.

It’s a little-known story that could change the way we see our history. Recently, historians took a second look an old Persian epic written around 500 AD and realized that, at the center of the tale, was the unusual story of a Persian prince marrying a Korean princess.

It’s an incredible discovery. Up until recently, we weren’t sure that the Persians of that time even knew Korea existed. This new revelation shows Persia didn’t just make contact with Korea – these countries were intimately connected. And it might just call for a total rewrite of history.

The Kushnameh: A 1,500-Year-Old Persian Epic About Korea

The story is called the Kushnameh, and, in itself, it’s hardly a new discovery. It’s one of the most popular stories to come out of the Persian Empire, one that’s been told and retold countless times in the 1,500 years since it was written.

The Kushmaneh is a massive, epic poem about an evil creature with elephant tusks named Kus who terrorizes a Persian family throughout the generations. The whole story spans across hundreds of years and thousands of lines of poetry – but the really interesting part is somewhere around the middle.

There, the author sat down and dedicated an incredible 1,000 lines of poetic verse to describing life in Korea during the Silla dynasty.

King and Queen of Silla. South Korea, Seoul National Folk Museum - Traditional Korean Costumes of Silla Kingdom (57 BC – 935 AD)

A Love Letter to Korea

Korea comes into play when the story starts to focus on a young, noble prince of Persia named Abtin. For his whole life, Abtin has been forced to live in the woods, hiding from the evil Kus the Tusked. He has only one thing to keep him safe: a magic book that tells him his future.

It’s almost like breaking the fourth wall – Abtin has a copy of the book we’re reading, and he’s not above flipping ahead a few pages to see how it all ends.

In fact, that’s just what he does. He reads the next chapter and finds out that he’s supposed to go to the Silla kingdom of Korea, and – after briefly getting confused and going to China – he winds up being welcomed with open arms by the king of Silla.

From here, the story is just page after page of lavish descriptions of how beautiful Korea is. Admittedly, some of it seems a little over-the-top.

It says, for example, that Korea is so overflowing with gold that even the dogs are kept on golden leashes. But on the whole, the description is so accurate that modern historians are sure the author must have visited it himself.

Abtin is mesmerized by the beauty of the country, and, soon after, by the beauty of its princess Frarang. He falls madly in love with Korean princess, begs the king for her hand in marriage, and she soon becomes his wife and the mother of his firstborn son.

Marriage of Abtin and Frarang

The Story of a Korean Hero

It’s unlikely that any of this really happened, of course. For one thing, there’s limited evidence that Persia spent 1,500 years being terrorized by an immortal monster with elephant tusks, and even less that any early Persian princes had magic books that could tell them the future.

But the symbolism of having a Persian prince take refuge in Korea and fall in love with a Korean princess is undeniable. This is hard proof that Persians didn’t just know about Korea 1,500 years ago; they had a deep, profound admiration for their nation.

What happens next, though, is what makes it a really big deal. Frarang’s son isn’t just a minor character. His birth is a turning point in the whole story.

The fully Persian prince spends his whole life in hiding and, when he finally returns to his homeland, ends up getting killed by Kus’s men. But it’s his half-Korean son who turns things around.

Frarang and Abtin’s son ends up raising up an army and leading the revolt against Kus. For centuries, in this story, Persia gets tormented by an evil, tusked monster. It’s only under the command of a half-Korean boy and his mother that Persia finally wins its freedom.

A Secret Hidden in Plain Sight

For 1,500 years, people have been reading this story without any idea what they were looking at. For a long time, we assumed that the story was just about China.

In the story, the Korean Silla kingdom is referred to as “Chin”, a name that could refer to either China or Korea. It’s even a plot point in the story, in fact.

At first, Abtin, like most historians, misreads the “Chin” in his magic future-telling book and thinks he’s supposed to go to China. And, just like modern historians, it takes him years before he realizes that it’s actually talking about China.

Recently, though, historians have taken a look at those descriptions again and realized just how perfectly they really do match up with Korea.

The descriptions in this book don’t sound anything like China, but they’re a perfect, vivid description of 6 th-century Korea – a place where, believe it or not, they really did keep their dogs on leashes of pure gold.

A Total Rewrite of History

This really might completely change the way we see history. For a long time, Korea has seemed an isolated, distant place from the Western world; but this story suggests that the east and west may not have been so disconnected after all.

It took until 1653 before the first European explorer reached Korea. That’s more than 1,100 years after Kushnama was written.

We’ve always known that Persia had some kind of contact with Korea. They were both a part of the Silk Road, and we’ve known for some time that Persian goods somehow ended up in Korea. Generally, though, it was assumed that they were just part of a bigger trade network.

In this story, though, Korea isn’t a trade partner. They’re a trusted ally, and they’re so important to the Persians that they literally can’t overcome evil until they trust the leadership of a half-Korean, half-Persian prince. It’s an incredibly symbolic marriage of cultures.

It puts other relics under a new light, as well. In an ancient tomb in Gyeong-Ju, for example, there is an old monument to a Korean war hero who looks an awful lot more like a Persian soldier than a Korean one.

Now, some people are starting to wonder if this might really be the monument to a forgotten Persian hero who fought for Korea.

There’s no telling how far this could go. It could change everything about how we see the history of these countries. After all, this is far more than a love story between two people. It’s a love story between two nations.

By Mark Oliver, Guest writer

This article was originally published on Ancient Origins and has been republished with permission.

Re-Learning History: The Big vs. Small Government Debate

History is an extremely important subject. Without understanding the past, one cannot fully understand the present or identify where the future might be going.

by Tim Bryant, guest writer

Now I for one am all about living in the present moment, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that history is there to teach us in the hopes that we can learn from it to create a better future.

With that being said, I thought it would behoove many of us to take a step back and look at a major ideological battle that has riddled the history of the United States, and which most people don’t fully understand. The results of which have had drastic ramifications on why the system currently is the way it is.

An introduction on the basics of this topic will hopefully push more people back into research on the subject and catapult the conversation back out into the mainstream. This issue is at the core of the social system and is essential to understand if the system is to change for the better.

Big Federal Government vs. Decentralized State Governments

Now big vs. small government is not an unknown topic. Even in the mainstream, especially among Libertarians, it is among the most talked about issues. What I find unacceptable however, is the lack of understanding and concern most other groups have about the over-concentration of power at the federal government level.

That is not to say one must agree with the principal of small government, but not being able to at least entertain the ideology and discuss it is a major problem. These are not black and white issues, therefore having dialectal thinking, as in looking at the problems from both sides, is paramount in a real democratic discussion.

Historically, the battle over the size of the government goes back to the very founding of the U.S. nation, where there were two primary ideologies pertaining to how the government should be structured.

There were the Federalists, who opted for big government and were led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams; and there were the Democratic-Republicans, who opted for state government and were led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

The Federalists took on the ideology that the “best people,” as in those who were most educated and who financially owned the country, should rule the country. They believed that man was inherently selfish and out for himself, therefore, they did not trust the people (referred to as “the mob”) to govern themselves, believing it would lead to “error, confusion, and instability.”

This fear of the people drove their belief in a strong federal government, a loose interpretation of the constitution, and an emphasis on a manufacturing economy to build the nation as a whole, aka a central system.

For obvious reasons, this ideology was supported by the wealthy class as well as big business and those still connected to England.

Ideologically at the core, they wanted to use the federal government to build a national/central system from which the whole country operated, keeping those vested interests at the top in tact, but also believing it would benefit the country as a whole.

On the flip side, the Democratic-Republicans took on a very different ideology of rule by the people, claiming that having the “best people” rule was very much the same as rule by a monarchy or king; the very thing they were attempting to escape.

Democratic-Republican’s tended to believe more in the people, and that informed citizens were capable of making good decisions for themselves and their country on their own. Democratic-Republicans therefore favored as little government as possible so the people could enjoy their liberty without the need for external rule or control.

That is not to say they did not believe in any government, but instead opted for a strict interpretation of the constitution, whereas the federal government is only allowed the powers vested to it by the Constitution.

To replace a big federal government, they proposed state power as a way of having some type of system, but still decentralizing the power as a way to ensure too much didn’t build up in one central location (known as a decentralized system).

Ideologically at the core, they believed in spontaneous order where communities would make their own rules, and own their communities without the need of a central system to dictate everything.

Effects on Today

It is clear today that the American system, and global system for that matter, have become extremely centralized; where power of wealth and control is centralized into the hands of fewer and fewer people.

The question that everyone needs to start asking is what to do with the system from here. It is clear that those in power want to stay in power, and therefore they will claim to use the government as a way of bringing about change for the better. This is a possibility, and something everyone should consider.

However, I invite all to at least consider a new approach; something not talked about truthfully by anyone in the establishment, right or left. That approach is decentralizing the power of the central system, such as disbanding the federal government, and giving power back the states and local communities.

It would appear that the people need to empower themselves and control their own communities, instead of electing politicians, or looking to businessmen or leaders to do it for them. How many times must we be duped by politicians before the people realize they are not out for our interests.

It might be time to break the camels back once and for all by boycotting/ scraping most of the federal government and building a new system which is owned and operated by the people. This will require hard work and real action, contrary to that of electing someone to do it for us. However, nothing can beat doing it yourself.

No matter your beliefs, I think we can all agree that it is at least time to have an open and honest conversation about the issue. It will in the end, decide where our future leads.