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25th Jan 2010  Korea's first lady Kim Yoon-ok is a descendant of one of India's royal families dating back two thousand years, according to the presidential office Monday.
The presidential couple arrived Sunday in New Delhi for a four-day state visit. It is the first visit to India by a Korean president since 2004.
The presidential office said Kim is a descendant of Heo Hwang-ok, a princess who travelled from an ancient kingdom in Ayodhya, India, to Korea.
Heo arrived on a boat and married King Suro of Korea's Gaya Kingdom in A.D. 48, according to Samguk Yusa, an 11th-century collection of legends and stories.
The chronicle says Princess Heo had a dream about a handsome king from a far away land.
After the dream, Heo asked her royal parents for permission to set out on an adventure to find the man of her fate.
The ancient book indicates that she sailed to the Korean Peninsula, carrying a stone, with which she claimed to have calmed the waters.
Archeologists discovered a stone with two fish kissing each other in Korea, which is a unique cultural heritage linked to a royal family in Ayodhya.
The stone is evidence that there were active commercial exchanges between the two sides after the princess's arrival here.
The princess is said to have given birth to 10 children, which marked the beginning of the powerful dynasty of Gimhae Kims.
Members of both the Heo and Gimhae Kim lineages consider themselves descendants of Heo Hwang-ok and King Suro. Two of the couple's 10 sons chose the mother's name. The Heo clans trace their origins to them, and regard Heo as the founder of their lines. The Gimhae Kims trace their origin to the eight other sons.
An analysis of DNA samples taken from the site of two royal Gaya tombs in 2004 in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, confirms that there is a genetic link between the Korean ethnic group and certain ethnic groups in India.
Over the past decades, there have been efforts to shed new light on the historical links between Korea and India. In 2000, a Gaya clan raised money to send a large memorial tablet to India and establish a park in Ayodhya. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/01/116_59663.html http://www.zeenews.com/news599159.html
South Korea's Ayodhya connectionAYODHYA: What's South Korea's Ayodhya connection? To get the answer, pay a visit to the picturesque banks of river Saryu in the holy city. Here one will find a monument in memory of an Ayodhya princess who is believed to have 'mothered' a dynasty in South Korea.
It has been an affair that resurfaced after a lapse of almost 2000 years in the year 2001. Mayors of Ayodhya and Kim-Hae city in South Korea had signed a Sister City Bond in March 2001.
The origin of the historical ties can be traced back to the middle of the first century AD. According to Sam Kuk Yusa, the ancient history of Korea, Queen Huh, wife of legendary King Suro, who founded the Karak Kingdom, was born in Ayodhya.
Queen Huh was a princess of the kingdom. Her father, the king of Ayodhya, on receiving a divine revelation, sent her on a long sea voyage to the Karak kingdom in southern Korea to marry King Suro, states the lines inscribed on the plaque at the monument in Ayodhya.
The monument in memory of Hwang Huh is built in Korean tradition using a three-metre high stone weighing 7,500 kg, specially shipped from South Korea. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/South-Koreas-Ayodhya-connection/articleshow/847880.cms
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