17 Facts About Heo Hwang-ok

Heo Hwang-ok known as Empress Boju, was a legendary queen mentioned in Samguk yusa, a 13th-century Korean chronicle.

The legend of Heo Hwang-ok is found in Garakguk-gi which is currently lost, but referenced within the Samguk Yusa.

The name is based on the author's educated guess on the name "Heo Hwang-ok" meaning Yellow Jade, making it "Suriratna", meaning Precious Stone in Hindi.

Heo Hwang-ok stated her given name as "Hwang-ok" and her family name as "Heo".

Heo Hwang-ok described how she came to Gaya as follows: the Heavenly Lord appeared in her parents' dreams.

Heo Hwang-ok told them to send Heo to Suro, who had been chosen as the king of Gaya.

Heo Hwang-ok commanded Yuch'on-gan to take a horse and a boat to Mangsan-do, an island to the south of the capital.

Heo Hwang-ok sailed to the vessel, and escorted it to the shores of Kaya.

Heo Hwang-ok gave each person ten bags of rice for the return voyage.

Heo Hwang-ok requested Suro to let two of the children bear her maiden surname.

Heo Hwang-ok called the temple Wanghusa and provided it with ten gyeol of stipend land.

In 2001, a Memorial of Heo Hwang-ok was inaugurated by a Korean delegation, which included over a hundred historians and government representatives.

Heo Hwang-ok offered tribute at the Queen Heo Memorial, attended a ceremony for the upgrade and beautification of the memorial and attended an elaborate Diwali celebration at Ayodhya along with the present Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, that included cultural shows and lighting of 300,000+ lights on the banks of Sarayu River.

Analysts such as Dong-geun Im have theorized that Queen Heo Hwang-ok truly existed not as a foreign Indian, but as a native Korean.

Heo Hwang-ok's claim suggests that Garakgukgi alludes to the deification of King Suro by aggrandizing much of his accomplishments and elevating him to that of the supernatural.

Ki-hwan Lee suggested that the story of Heo Hwang-ok was dramatized to elevate Gaya's stature of the Buddhist scene among the Korean kingdoms and to associate the sacred artifacts they possessed to something closer to that of the Indian culture.

Heo Hwang-ok added that despite much efforts to find any substantial evidence that linked the relics to Queen Heo's possible existence, the sheer commonness of the relics being found across all of Asia, he concluded that the relics did not originate from ancient India, but rather the aforementioned ancient Babylon.