The Missing Link in the history of Okinawa
.
- The Skeleton in the closet
- What got into Okinawa in the 13th century
- The message the Shuri Castle Bell wanted to tell you
- Karate, how come did you happen to be there ?
The pre-modern history of Okinawa is becoming more and more of the subject of historical and cultural claims between the neighboring powers in the East Asia. While there is no denying that Okinawa is currently under the firm control of the Japanese government and that most Okinawans would identify themselves as Japanese now, if not Okinawan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) makes sure every literature under its control, on and off line, put the sticker of ‘vassal country’ 藩國 before ‘Ryukyu Kingdom’ on the basis of the tributary relationship that Ryukyu Kingdom used to have with Ming China for hundreds of years from the 15th century to the 19th century.
The undercurrent contentions may not be just about the possible territorial claim in the future, but also for the cultural assets. The martial art Karate came from this small archipelago with the area size of 1,207 square kilometers, about 1/30 of Taiwan.
The out-of-date skeleton in the closet
When we look at the history of Okinawa, it would not need a genius to see the island go a sudden surge in seafaring and trading activities and in sophistication of the governing system in the second half of the 13th century. The island had been known at the stage of the foraging society until the 12th century. By the end of the 13 century, Naha port was emerging as a hub of the international trade in the East Asia and the competition for power created the saga of division, diplomatic competition, attacks, killings, overseas exile and chase, until the island saw its first unification in the early 15th Century by Sho Hashi. The question is what got into the island for those sudden changes to take place out of the hunter-gatherer society.
The question has long been the source of frustration for those who are interested in the history of Okinawa, yet without access beyond the publicized information, which seemed to circumvent the subject tantalizingly. But it seems that we begin to notice some meaningful changes there recently, though in a very cautious manner.
“The royal castle of Chuzan was built in the 13th century during the days of King Eiso.
Later, during the reign of King Satto, it became a large-scale castle surrounded by a piled
stone wall with a seiden ( main hall ) with Koryo style tile-roofing at the center. There was
a royal mausoleum, temple, large pond, residences, and communities in the surrounding area. From around that time, the Ryukyu Kingdom opened the door to overseas trade,
such as by starting tributary trade with China centering on Makiminato.”
- from Google Arts and Culture on the History of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
While the connection of the Ryukyu Kingdom with the ancient Koreans has been known in the academic circle for long, it seldom landed on the publicized literature until recently, for what I believe to have been political reasons. It is about time to lay things on the board, the skeleton in the closet past its effective date. The longer it is left in obscurity, the more vulnerable it gets to the historical distortion or fabrication as the concerned parties try to double down on their claim on the island, territorial and cultural, to secure a position of political advantage for any possible opportunities in the future. It is about time that the transparency, scientific and untainted by the territorial and cultural rapacities, should be sought about the history of the island for the Okinawan people, who have given so much to the world with their rich cultural assets and, thus or not, who has every right to get the access to their true identity, free from the claws of the international politics.
What happened to the Koreans in the 13th Century
Koryo began to have the conflicts with the Mongols of Genghis Kahn from 1216. The tension escalated to the military collision in 1231 after the incident of the Mongol envoy killed on the way back from Koryo. For the period of three decades, the Koryo court had fought the nine big battles with the Mongols from their fortress in Ganghwa Island off the western coast of the Peninsula near Seoul, which served as the wartime capital, while the whole country was devastated by the Mongol force. They struck up a peace treaty in 1260 with the Mongols on the condition that the Koryo court move back to the old inland capital Kaesung. [1]
Koryo (918-1392 AD) had been under the militarian rule for seven decades when the Mongols made its first invasion in 1231. For the military leaders the return to the original inland capital in compliance of the peace treaty not just meant the disgrace of the subjugation to the country’s enemy, but the surrendering of the militarian power to the royal court, who struck up the in-law relationship with the Mongol court.
Then, a military group called Sambyeolcho 三別抄 rebelled against the Koryo court, defying the peace with the Mongols, and raised the civil war, declaring themselves to be the only legitimate Koryo. The force moved to Jindo, a southernmost island attached to the Peninsula, with all their families and followers, in 1270.[2] They built the mountain fortress and castle in the brief period of less than a year and controlled the southern coast areas of the peninsula. At one point they sent a letter to the Japanese Kamakura Bakufu in the name of Koryo in suggestion for the alliance against Mongols, causing a great confusion in the Bakufu. [3] After the repeated attacks from the Koryo-Mongol alliance force, they finally had to give up their new fortress in Jindo and moved south to Jeju Island in 1271 and there they fought their last battle in April 1273. Many died and 1,300 soldiers surrendered, but the whereabout of the rest has been a mystery. But recently the South Korean historians began to get their “whereabouts” in no other place than in Okinawa.
2] According to 高麗史節要 or Abridged History of Koryo, more than 1,000 ships were mobilized to move to Jindo Island including the families of the soldiers. The distance between Ganghwa-Do and Jindo is about 360 kilometers. The vessels used were not boat size, but ships. If we assume average number of the people on a ship at 20, the whole number would be 20 thousand. The record says the number of the force that fought in Jeju at the final battle exceeded ten thousand. It is unlikely the evacuation from Jeju Island took place haphazardly. The reasonable guess could be that the evacuation of the families and non-battle hands to Ryukyu was made before the final battle in Jeju of April 1273, with a good knowledge of the place.
3] The diplomatic letter Sambyeolcho sent in 1271 from Jindo
is not remaining, but the internal report within the Bakufu about the letter, titled
高麗牒狀不審條條 , survived. (Tokyo University) According to the memo, the
diplomatic letter notified Japan of the capital move to Jindo and warned of the
Mongol’s plan for the Japan attack. The Japanese memo wondered why it did not
date in the Yuan calendar year that the prior letter from Koryo of 1268 had
used. Only after the extinction
of the Sambyeolcho resistance within Korea, the Mongols
could make their first expedition to Japan in 1274 pushing the back of the
Koryo force.
The Artifacts in evidence of the Sambyeolcho Landing in Okinawa
Okinawa witnessed the sudden appearance of the stone castles on the hills, called Gusuku along with the advent of the local leaders called Aji, from around the 13 Century and with them started the recorded history of Okinawa, getting out of the era of the myths. The King Eiso 英祖 ( -1299), the early half of whose life belonged to the realm of myth yet, is known to have built the Urasoe Castle in the late 13 Century where the roof-end tiles of the Sambyeolcho and the tiles with the mark of the Koryo artison were found with the ealiest Buddhist relics found in Okinawa.
The roof-end tile carries the lotus pattern, which was the symbol of the Buddhism, which was the state religion of the Koryo Dynasty, and the only difference between the two roof-ends, one from the Sambyeolcho fortress in Jindo Island in Korea and the one found in Urasoe, is in the number of lotus petals. By adding one more petal, the builder of the edifice in Okinawa may have wanted to declare the new phase of their force that they believed carried the legitimacy of Koryo. The pieces of the tile found in Urasoe and in Shuri castle with the inscription stipulates it was made by the Koryo artisan. Here again it is highly probable that the Koryo “高麗” in the inscription on the tile may have been meant as promulgation of the ‘legitimate Koryo’, rather than a nonchalant mark of manufacturer. Also, the use of the sexagenary cycle year 癸酉年, Year Keyu, can signify the spirit of independence that the Sambyeolcho force had carried. It was common to use the Chinese dynasty calendar in those times in East Asia, but Koryo, who thought themselves as another center of the world, used its own dynasty year most of their dynasty until its subjugation to the Mongols. Sambyeolcho, of course, denied even the use of the Koryo calendar and used the sexagenary cycle year. 4]
4] The
Keyu year can be 1273 or 1333. The year 1273 was the time of the supposed
Sambyeolcho landing in Okinawa. If it meant 1333, it would mean that the
Koreans, now with the last ruler of the Eiso Dynasty, were still maintaining
their identity as new Koryo until the time of the Shuri castle
construction.
The surfacing of the artifacts that attest to the landing of the Sambyeolcho force in the late 13th century does not necessarily mean it was the first-ever arrival of the ancient Koreans in Okinawa. The ancient Koreans from the states, such as Baekje, Silla and their predecessors, were the most active and capable seafarers and maritime traders in the East Asia since the beginning of the first millennium. It is highly probable that there had been the earlier settlers from Koryo from the early 13th century as the country went under the Mongol attack and that the evacuation to Okinawa was a preplanned exit strategy of the rebel force.
The
Inscription in the Bell of Bridge of All Nations
In 1406 Sho Hashi took power in Chuzan, about 140 years after the posited Sambyeolcho landing. It was his son and the 2nd King of the Sho Dynasty, Sho Taikyu 尚泰久, that had the bell built and placed in the Shuri castle in 1458.
首里城正殿鐘 “Bell of the Shurijo Castle Seiden” or “Bankoku Shinryo no Kane”
The inscription : 琉球國者南海勝地而 鍾三韓之秀 // 以大明為輔車 以日域為脣歯在 // 此ニ中間湧出之蓬莱 嶋也以舟楫為万國之 // 津梁異産至宝充満十方刹
[ English Translation ] The land of Ryukyu is a lovely place in the
South Seas. Preserving the excellence of Korea (Three Han 三韓 ), assisting the chariot of the Great Ming, lips to the teeth of Japan, the legend island is located between the latter
two. Travelling by ship, it serves as the bridge of the world, filling its
temples with the most precious goods and exotic products of foreign
lands.
*Three Han 三韓 here means the three ancient Korean states: Koguryo, Baekje and Silla, which preceded the Koryo Dynasty.
The inscription on the Bell should be given a special weight in retracking the history of Okinawa since its content is the direct voice of the founders of the Ryukyu kingdom, not the interpretative narrative in the later days by interested third parties. The beginning part describing the relations with the three countries, that are now Korea, China and Japan, is usually glossed over in many translations, but that is the key part that show what identity the Sho royalty had of themselves at that time. The inscription not just puts Korea (三韓) ahead of China and Japan, but declares Ryukyu as inheriting the excellence of Korea 三韓之秀, while introducing China and Japan as important and indispensable neighbors, but of functional partnership.
Followings are the messages and points of significance that the content of the inscription seem to have intended to deliver to the readers of its time and today:
- Given all the way the Bell and its inscription were made and presented, it would be safe to say that the founders of the Sho Dynasty were very proud of their Korean descent and that they did not have any intention to conceal their lineage, not just to the Okinawan populace of the time, but to the two powerful neighbor countries, China and Japan. By this time of the Bell placement, the port of Naha bustled with the Japanese and Chinese, and by the circumstance it will be a safe conjecture that all the people in the Naha, the Okinawans, Japanese and Chinese, knew that the ruling class including the royalty had originally been Koreans. Japanese of the time knew Koreans very well. The chance would have been very low that they would not have known even if they had not revealed their Korean identity. [5]
5] Chinese also knew the Okinawan ruling class came from Korea. A Korean bureaucrat and scholar, who happened to land on the Southern Chinese coast in 1488 after being lost adrift at sea, were questioned by the Chinese official whether Korea had regular contacts with the 琉球高麗 Ryukyu Koryo. The Chinese official knew so well that the Ryuku rulers werte from Koryo, so called them Ryuku Koryo. The Korean scholar, apparently clueless why Koryo, the bygone dynasty, was mentioned with Ryukyu, answered back that Koryo became Joseon he belonged to. Following is the way he recorded the scene in his travel report. 又問曰：「汝國與日本相通乎？」臣曰：「日本、琉球俱在東南大海中，相距隔遠，未相通信。高麗革為今我朝鮮。」 漂海錄, 崔溥, 1488
- We need to note that it put forth the excellence 秀 of the ancient Korea openly. The Okinawans at that time could be likened to the Phoenicians or Dutch in the Age of Discovery for their international exposure incomparable to any other people, and the most balanced knowledge on the various peoples and cultures in the East Asia of the time. Its adoption of the audacious expression 三韓之秀 “the preeminence of the three ancient Korean states” might suggest that it was a quite acceptable notion and that the general reverence for cultural brilliance of the ancient Korean states, bygone at the time, was shared within the East Asian community of the time.
- The inscription also reveals how the tributary relationship with China
was received by the Sho royalty. The manner whereby the Ming name is mentioned,
following ‘Korea’ and in parallel with ‘Japan’, combined with the modest
honorific used for Ming, by way of putting the ‘Great’ before Ming as in 大明, does not seem to click with
the master-servant relationship that some people try to depict the
tributary relationship as these days. It was not a relationship whereby
the expression of subservience or utmost respect was expected from the tributary to the
Master. The level of the respect shown in the inscription for the ‘master’
Ming appears to befit the view on the tributary system as the formality of the
unique trade system of Chinese invention, in which the immense profit for the
tributary was guaranteed in return for the acceptance of the formality, at the
expense of the ‘Master’ player.
The Etymological Tracking of the Gusuku Era Vocabulary
The disruptive changes
of the 13 Century in Okinawa did not come without the sudden appearance of the
new words and that is another sign of the influx of an extraneous people and
culture. The new stone edifices began to appear in Okinawa near Naha with the
new appellation Gusuku, occupied by the new local leaders called Aji.
When we posit the landing of the Koryo people in 13th Century and their
eventual founding of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 15th Century, we would definitely need to consider
the middle-age Korean language as a source of the etymological developments in
the Okinawan vocabulary. Followings are some of the etymological tracking of the
words based on the postulation of the Sambyeolcho arrival in the late 13th
century in Okinawa.
- Gusuku
There are several assertions on the etymology of gusuku, but no approach has ever been made on the assumption of its derivation from the olden Korean language. The original Okinawan of the word ‘Gusuku’ is Gushiku. In the ancient Korean, Kusi meant the mountain ( 嶽 ) or skewer (くし 串). Kuru meant ‘castle’ or ‘castle village’. Thus, Kusi-kuru meant ‘mountain castle village’. In the course of use by the Okinawans, the ending -ru sound seems to have been lost. In ancient Korea, the fortress village was built surrounded by the defensive stone walls with a scale to sustain the self-sufficiency for an extended period at the times of war.
source: Prof. Im Byeong Jun, Konkuk University, Korean Education Department
- Aji With the advent of Gusukus in Okinawa, appeared the local ruler class called Aji. In the old Korean, Aji meant uncle, the brother of father, of which the modern version is 아저씨 [ a-jo-si ], the last syllable being the honorific suffix, or 아제 [ a-je]. 5] In the ancient Korea, the family title was often used as rank in the military. In Koguryo, the brother 兄 was used in official ranks like 太[S1] [S2] 大兄 (Great Big Brother), 大兄 (Big Brother), 小兄 (elder brother). It is probable Aji was one of less formal titles in the military for ‘commander’ in Koryo. Later as the Ryukyu gets more centralized, the term Aji began to be used for the aristocrats below the prince level. It shows the title Aji was a quite flexible term for the status of the local overload.
5] Still, the dialect for ‘uncle’ in the
southwestern region in Korea, Chungchung Province, where the ancient Korean
state Baekje was located, is 아지씨 [a-ji-si]. 아저씨 [A-jo-si] in
Korean has exactly the same meaning and structure asおじさん Ojisan in Japanese. -씨 in 아저씨 is the honorific suffix like -さんin おじさん. It is probable
that Achi in the Achi
no Omi (阿知使主) may
have had the same derivation.
-Satto The term Satto 사또 in the old Korean indicated the local governor or overlord. Satto under the centralized government system in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea was responsible for all administrative affairs at the local level, including the judicial affairs and law enforcement. It was a native Korean word and was used usually as vocative noun that the lower officials in the local court and the commoners used when they addressed the local head in person. In Okinawa, Satto appeared as the name of the first king of Chuzan, written in Chinese as 察度 さっと. It is highly probable that Satto 察度 was used in Okinawa as title name since the ‘Satto’ followes the surname-like 承 used in the name of Sho-satto 承察度, his rival and great grandson of Eiso, who became King of Nanzan. 6]
6] Sho-Satto, the first king of Nanzan, was the grandson of the 5th son of Eiso (英祖 ), who spun out to Nanzan. He disappeared from the records in Okinawa after the attack of his gusuku by the Satto force in 1396. He reappears with his family and subordinates in1398 in Korea, according to the Korean records, with no separate record about his landing in Korea. His name was recorded as 溫沙道, pronounced, in Korean, On-Sa-To, in the Annals of Joseon Dynasty 朝鮮王朝實錄. We do not know why he used the surname 承 in Okinawa and溫 in Korea. The name of the king that Sambyeolcho enthroned in their last years in Korea as their leader was 承化侯 王溫. Seung-Hwa-Hu 承化侯 was the conferred title meaning ‘fief of 承化’ and 王溫 Wang On was his real name. If it was just a coincidence that both of his surnames showed in the appellation of the Sambyeolcho king, both 承 Seung and 溫 On were family names that flourished in the Koryo society. The fact that the Nanzan King sought refuge in Joseon, the farthest among the three countries with the least weight in trade and in politics as well, should be noted in relation to the ethnic derivation of the early Okinawan rulers and as indicator of the sense of affinity they may have carried with Korea, after more than one hundred years since their posited landing in Okinawa.
- Naha There are few etymological studies on the name of the capital city of Okinawa. The only one readily available in the public literature is from Irosetsuden 遺老説伝, the collection of Okinawan myths compiled in 18 Century that the name came from naba, which means mushroom in both Okinawan and southern Japanese dialect. The tale goes that a long time ago there was a rock in the shape of the naba, so the place came to be called Naba. The rock had eroded away, but the name remained Naha after some phonological change.
When we put aside the story as a folktale patched up in later days, we come to notice the similarity of the name Naha to Nara of the mainland Japan. Would it be just a coincidence for the two names sound similar? Looking from a distance, we can see the both cities had the same historical background in their birth, about six hundred years apart in time, in that they were built by the new comers, who took the control of their new land with their superior power and technologies over the earlier settlers. In the case of Nara in Japan, the new comers were the Baekje and Koguryo people of the 7th Century while it was the Koryo force of the 13th Century for Okinawa.6] The Okinawan pronunciation of Naha is Nafa. In Korean, nara 나라 meant ‘capital’ or ‘country’ in the olden time and has come to mean more of ‘country’ or ‘state’ nearing the modern time. By the beginning of the 15th Century it was written 나랗 with the ‘-h’ sound in the end. The ‘-f ’ sound in Nafa, notated in Japanese ‘ナーファ’, sounding closer to na-hua than to Nafa. The name of the Okinawan capital Naha might have the same etymological derivation as Nara of mainland Japan and the similarity in sound of the two olden capital names may not be a simple coincidence.
6] 上代日本语中央方言（WOJ）：nara（k）；中古韩语（MK）：nàráh，“country”
-Okinawa The name Okinawa is the Japanese way of pronouncing of the Okinawan original Uchinaa. うち [ uchi ] means ‘we’ among many things In the Japanese, while 우리 [ uri ] means ‘we’ almost exclusively in the modern Korean.7] The Uchi- in Uchinaa could be the sound change of the Korean uri or uji , as may have been pronounced in the olden Korean. ‘-Naa’ in Uchinaa can be the reduced form of Nafa, or it may have come from the olden Korean na or nu, which meant land or country. It needs be mentioned here the earliest hiragana spellings of Okinawa was おきなは okinaha in the Heike Monogatari 平家物語 of 14C, with the ‘h’ sound in the last syllable, before it came to be recorded as Okinawa おきなわ later. Under the assumption of the word being of the Korean derivation, Uchinaa can be interpreted as our country, just like the way the modern Koreans say Uri-Nara to refer to their country Korea. 8] Intriguingly, the overall pronunciation of Uchinaa sounds similar to that of Uri-nara.
7] The Korean word uri and the Japanese uchi seem to share a common origin, that is, connoting the closed community one belonged to. Uchi in the modern Japanese and Uri in modern Korean may have come from uji, the word for the closed agricultural and defensive community that flourished in the peninsula and archipelago throughout the ages of bronze and early iron, that pertains to the Yayoi and Kofun periods in Japan. The word uji has stayed to mean ‘clan’ in the Japanese. On the other hand, uri, in Korea, has come down to mean ‘we’ almost exclusively, so that there is no other expression that connotes ‘we’ in Korea, different from in Japanese, where there are several expressions meaning ‘we’, such as わたしたち watashitachi. Yet, Koreans have a weird way of calling one’s spouse, like 우리 마누라 uri-manura, which means our wife word-for-word, but actually refers to my wife, like うちのもの uchi-no-mono in Japanese. While Uri came to mean ‘we’ almost exclusively with the vestigial connotation of (my) house or family in Korea, the word Uchi in Japan ended up having the primary meaning of (my) house or family with the auxiliary connotation of ‘we’.
8] There is an assertion in Japan that the Shuri-Naha dialect Uchinaa is the result of the phonological change from Okinawa that happened only to the area while in other areas of the island the Okinawa pronunciation is “preserved”. I stick to the Shuri-Naha dialect Uchinaa here as being closer to the original sound of the name since I believe the ruling-class people in the central Okinawan area must have kept the etymological apprehension of the word the longest while the local people in Okinawa and neighboring islands were amenable to the Japanization of the word since the word would be nothing more than a proper noun for the place to them.
The influx of the
Koreans is posited to have lasted relatively short, and the duration of
migration would not have been longer than one hundred years even when we
presume there had been earlier settlers from the peninsula or Jeju Island
before the arrival of Sambyeolcho force. There are found some possible cognates
in the Okinawan with the Korean, but it is hard to tell whether they are the
cognates directly from the arrival of Koreans or from the influence of Japanese
language, which had shared a lot of cognates with the Korean already, unless
the specific words can be identified to have come from the era of the
disruptive change astride the posited arrival of the Koryo people.
The Origin of the Surname Sho of the Okinawan Royal Lineage
When we posit that the leaders of the Okinawan society from the Gusuku period to the launching of the Ryukyu Kingdom were the Koryo warriors and their descendants, it would not be persuasive to say they did not have their family name. The Chinese version of the story goes that the Chinese ruler Xuande conferred Sho Hashi 尚巴志 with the surname Sho 尚 when he bestowed him the title of “Chusan King Shisho’s heir Sho Hashi” in 1425. The Chinese diplomatic document of 1425 may have been the first literature showing the Sho 尚 as surname of Hashi family, but that does not necessarily mean that the family name 尚 had been selected by the Chinese ruler and was endowed to the ruler of Okinawa.
We see that many Ajis, if not all, openly use the family name already in 14th Century.9] If they were reluctant to use the surnames too openly before the Sho Dynasty, it might have been because of the fear for the possible attack from the Mongols. At the time of the Sambyeolcho struggle in Korea, the Koryo court gave the list of the rebels to the Mongols. China was still under the Mongols when Satto arose as a new power in Chuzan in 1350. It was only when the Mongols had been replaced by the Ming that Satto sent his brother to China as envoy, still not using the surname. By the time of Hashi, more than 50 years past the start of the Ming, the fear for the resurrection of the Mongols would have gone almost completely, and they may have found it about time to come out with their real surname.
9] The examples would be Sho-Satto 承察度, the first king
of Nanzan, was the grandson of the 5th son of Eiso (英祖), and Hananchi
攀安知,
King of Hokushan, who sent his mission to Korea when he succeeded the throne at
the death of his father in 1397.
10] Bunei was assassinated by Hashi himself in 1406 and he enthroned his father as king of Chuzan and managed to get the entitlement of Chuzan King in 1415.
Considering all the facts that dissipate the plausibility of the story that the surname Sho was the bestowal of the Chinese court, the most likely scenario would be that the surname 尚-pronounced ‘Sho’ in Japanese, ‘Sang’ in Korean and ‘Shang” in Chinese- had been requested by Hashi. 11] The ‘bestowal’ of the surname by the Chinese ruler to the Okinawa’s first royalty can generate the notion that the people of the island were not equivalent to the East Asian states of the time in their level of civilization. It does not click with what the inscription of the Bell of the Shuri Castle evinces of their intellectual level and scale of their outlook on the world.
11] The family name 尙 was one of the names that thrived in the Koryo period. In China the name was known as of the typical Dong-Yi lineage, that thrived in the Shandong, the coastal province in current China protruding towards the Korean Peninsula. The first record on the person with the 尙 name appeared in the history of Koguryo, the ancient Korean state. After the fall of the unified Silla, active were some persons with 尙 name as local overlord in the camp of the Baekje resurrection force before the start of the Koryo Dynasty. In Joseon Dynasty the Sang family produced some excellent military figures. The family even produced one chancellor, the highest bureaucrat under the King, during Joseon Dynasty. There were about 2,300 people with 尙 surname in South Korea alone according to the Year 2000 census.
Karate
Okinawa is known for his rich cultural legacies spanning from the folk music, dance, architecture to cuisine, but perhaps the most conspicuous and influential piece of culture from the island would be Karate inarguably.
The origin of Karate still left in the
realm of the myth
The rediscovery and modernization of the Naha-originated Okinawan martial art was made from the late 1800s in Japan. The affiliation with the Kungfu of Shaolin seems to have been actively sought by the some of the early fathers of modern Karate and dojos in the course, partly for the need to enrich the technics and skills, partly for the clout of Dharma, who, according to the legendary stories, are said to have introduced the Zen Buddhism to China around the 6 Century along with the Indian martial art. The association with the Zen Buddhism would certainly have helped expand the perception of Karate, beyond the sphere of physical defense skills, to the “way” 道 of self-discipline and mental cultivation. Yet all these things do not help explain why the Karate was there in Okinawa, more precisely in Naha and Shuri, in the first place, from the early years of the Ryukyu Kingdom, by the mid-15 Century at the latest.
First, the story that associated the legendary exotic monk Dharma, said extant around the 6th Century, with the martial art is known to have been made only in the 17th Century in China.12] The existence of Dharma itself not free from the realm of myth, no contemporary records of the said time that dealt with the figure provided any records of his engagement in martial arts. The invalidity of the Dharma’s engagement in the martial art significantly discounts the meaning of the efforts by the early masters of the 19th century to seek liaison with Kungfu. It would also invalidate the attempts by some to trace the origin of Karate back to the antiquity of the 6 century China or Tang Dynasty ( 618-907 AD ).
Secondly, there was no identified Shaolin Temple or Monastery in
Fujian province and no records of the Shaolin practice in the region at the
time of the early Ryukyu Kingdom period when the earliest existence of the
Okinawan martial art could be traced in Okinawa. There is no evidence that the propagation of the practice was made by the Chinese immigrants from the
Fujian Province either. Some private Kungfu masters and houses may have
prospered at the time of the 19th Century in the Southern China and they may
have inspired some of the early Japanese masters, but that does not mean that
the Karate of Okinawa was born out of the Shaolin Kungfu. 13]
Thirdly, one of the earliest martial art masters known in Okinawa was the Uni Ufugusuku 鬼大城, who was himself an aristocrat, active in the mid 15th century. The fact that he was not a Buddhist monk or Chinese immigrant seems to debilitate the veracity of the story that the Okinawan martial art came from the Kung Fu of Shaolin Temple originally or via the Chinese community in Naha. His time was before the establishment of the southern Shaolin Temple is said to have been made. Rather, it manifests that the Karate in Okinawa was different in the nature of the practitioners and in the route of propagation within the society from the beginning. The Karate in Okinawa was not practiced by the monks in the temple in the later days either. The ruling class formed the main practitioners of the ‘ti’. The Okinawan martial art had a distinctively different culture from that of the Chinese Kungfu.
12] Yijin Jing 易筋经 was a manual for Qigong, of which the earliest edition can be dated to the early 17th Century.
Sambyeolcho as carrier of the unarmed
martial art
The ancient Korean states had a vigorous culture of martial arts. The matches of martial arts, the one-on-one wrestling and unarmed fight, remain well depicted in the murals of the Koguryo tombs that are ascribed to 4C to 5C CE. The murals talk much about the culture of the martial arts of the time in the ancient Korean states. The martial arts were played in a way not much different from the open sport of our time, the contestants wearing the same short pants, watched by the spectators in a court banquet or festive events, with a referee overseeing the match in the case of the Ssireum, the wrestling. Such culture of the martial art seems to have been shared in Japan, which belonged to the same cultural sphere as the ancient Korean states. 14]
14] In the Kokyoku Tenno 皇极天皇 ( R. 665-661 CE ) part of Nihon Shoki is recorded is the scene of the Japanese ruler entertaining the Baekje envoys with the demonstration of Sumo in the court. 乙亥。飨百济使人大佐平智积等于朝。〈或本云。百济使人大佐平智积及儿达率。阙名。恩率军善。〉乃命健儿相扑于翘岐前。智积等宴毕。而退拜翘岐门。
The Korean wrestling Ssireum in the
mural of the ancient Korean tomb ca. 4-5C. and the modern Ssireum contest on TV
show as traditional holiday event in South Korea. See the refree in the mural
and in the modern Ssireum. 
The bare-handed martial
art on the murals of Koguryo Tombs, each dated 4C and 5C CE. The tomb of the
mural on the left above, in North Korea, ascribes to 357 CE, predates the propagation
of the Indian martial art by Dharma in the Chinese legends. In Koryo society, the bare-hand martial art becomes the sport of the bureaucrats of both the literati and militarian class, and the skills were highly appreciated for the special force in the military along with the martial arts using weapons. Its match contest was frequently held in the court at the festive events or just impromptu at the whim of the kings or military leaders. It was not yet the requisite skills for the military recruitment, but most of the military leaders were master themselves or fervent fan of the martial arts, especially the bare-handed fight. 15]
15] In the History of Koryo 高麗史, the practice of the bare-handed martial art are mentioned many times, written in 手搏, pronounced ‘Subak’ in modern way of Chinese reading in Korea. The kings favored the good bare-hand martial art players. Du Gyeong Seung杜景升( -1197) and Yi Eui Min李義旼 (-1196) were excellent players and the two became power man in row during the militarian rule period before the Mongol invasion. There remains in the History of Koryo 高麗史 the conversation between the two boasting their skills in the martial art. 景升曰：“某时之事，吾以空拳奋击，众皆奔溃。Du said, “Once, I fought with the empty fist and laid down all the men.” (高麗史 券100, 列傳 13, 杜景升 // 券 128, 列傳 41, 李義旼)
Coming into the Joseon Dynasty, the bare-hand martial art continued to prosper. 才物譜, encyclopedia published in 1798 Joseon Dynasty, let us know the actual name the bare-hand martial art 手搏 was called in Korean, ‘탁견’ [Ta-Kyeon]. By the time this martial art arrived in the modern time, it was pronounced 태껸 [Tae-Kyeon]. The name Taekwondo 태권도 came from this word 태껸. From this, We know the bare-hand martial art, written 手搏 in Chinese, would have been called Ta-Kyeon or Tae-Kyeon in the time of Koryo.[]
[] 才物譜, 李晩永 1798 "卞 手搏爲卞 角力爲武 苦今之탁견"
Given the status the martial arts had in the Koryo society, especially within the warrior community, it will be a natural inference that the transfer of the martial arts of Koryo to the island would have happened on the landing of the warriors that took place in 1273 CE. It would have stayed and developed on its own in the course of the new militarian settlers struggling and establishing the kingdom in their new land.
We know that the Okinawan bare-hand
martial art existed already before or by the 15th Century and that the earliest recorded practitioner of the martial arts was a warrior-aristocrat. 16] Given less than enough pixels to get any
clear-enough picture on the early days of the Okinawan martial art, the
postulation of the Koryo derivation of the bare-hand Okinawan martial art
clicks with what little information we have been able to muster up on the
Karate of the early years in Okinawa, better than any make-believe stories ever
made.
Etymological Tracking of the term Karate
When the Okinawan bare-hand martial art was rediscovered in the 18th century, it was and written 唐手 and called Karate by the Japanese. The way the Chinese characters were employed and pronounced indicates that the name was created by Japanese since the time we do not know when in the past. Chinese did not use the word 唐手, ‘Tang Shou’ in Chinese pronunciation, and there is no records of 唐手 in their literature, other than the ones referring to the Japanese bare-hand martial art of Okinawan origin in the modern time.
In Chinese 唐 refers to the Tang Dynasty ( 618-907 ). It had been extinct for more than four hundred years when the earliest time the existence of the martial arts in Okinawa could be ascribed to. During the time of Tang, Okinawa was in the state of the gatherer-hunter society and the probability of the cultural exchange between Okinawa and the Tang, with its capital Xian placed deep in land, would be nearing zero.
The history of the word Kara 唐 in the Japanese
The Chinese character 唐, especially when it is read Kara, is a very obscure and sensitive word in the Japanese because in it the history of Japan and Korea is encapsulated. Those who are familiar with the Japanese would know that the Chinese character reading is very complicated and obfuscating. Learning to tell between Kunyomi 訓讀 and Onyomi 音讀 would be one of the first huddles for those learning Japanese.
The ancient history of Japan up to the time of Nara is about the migration of the people, mostly from the Peninsula. Some may have come from the parts that belong to the current China geographically, but they still belonged to the ancient Korean polities, which included the lower Manchu area and the east coastal areas of the China. Kara at first referred to the confederacy of small states 加羅 that prospered in the southern Korean peninsula, who are associated with the Kofun period in Japan culturally and genetically. Then, the character 韓 began to be used to allude to the ancient Korean states after 加羅, such as Baekje, Silla and Koguryo, and their people in general, keeping the same pronunciation as Kara 加羅. The Korean things carried the image of something precious and exquisite in the early years of the Japanese society, and most of the aristocrat families were proud of their Korean lineage until the huge turbulent event they had to go through in the late 13th century.
It was the invasion of the allied force of the Mongol and Koryo that started in 1274, the next year of the Sambyeolcho’s last defeat in Jeju Island when they are posited here to have landed in Okinawa. It was Japan’s first major exposure to an extraneous threat after six hundred years of peace since the collapse of Baekje in the 7th century. The word Kamikaze 神風, meaning ‘Wind of God’, was born out of this national experience.
After this frightening national experience began the tacit campaign to erase the traces of Korea in their society, from the names of place, river, mountain and temple, to the names of cultural item, to the names of folk performance and even lyrics of chant in the Matsuri, by way of changing the Chinese character 韓 no other than to 唐, but still reading it Kara. This Korea-erasing started from the 14th century and still going on in the Japanese society, even stepped up after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and after the World War II defeat. 17]
17] The earliest changes are known to have been made in the 14 century. Karatsu 韓津 in Saga prefecture was changed to 唐津 and 百濟津 Kudara-Tsu in Yamaguchi Prefecture changed to 下松, pronounced the same. Karagawa 韓川 or Korean River in Izumo changed to 唐川. (This river is even right at the place where the founding gods landed from the Korean side, according to the Nihon Shoki.) The famous 唐津茶婉 or Karatsu Teapot, influenced by Korean porcelain, has nothing to do with China, only the fabricated name keeps generating false impression. The city of Karatsu, in its guide , says the city 唐津 was so named because it was the port in the old days trading with Tang and Korea, but Japanese did not have the seafaring capability to have direct trade with Tang during the time of Tang ( 618-907 ). From around 16th century, Japanese began to use 唐, pronounced Kara, to refer to Korea from the start. The name of the Okayama Children’s Dance (Karako odori), the Korean missionaries of the 16th century, got the name 唐子踊 from the start. Later, it sometimes began to be pronounced Dou even when it meant Korea. Japanese dictionary says Kara refers to Korea 韓or Tang 唐, but the dual connotation was the result of the name change from 韓 to 唐 to conceal the Korean origin. There is no case where 唐, when pronounced Kara, meant Tang China.
The Implication of the Japanese calling the Okinawan martial art 'Karate'
In general, when the Japanese referred to the real Tang Dynasty that existed from 618 to 907, they use On’yomi 音読, the way or reading the Chinese character after the Chinese pronunciation. So, when you meant ‘monk from Tang China’, you wrote 唐僧 and read it Tou Shu. When you meant ‘Tang Music’, you wrote 唐樂 and read it Tou Raku. When 唐 was read Kara, it means the original word was 韓 or that it was from Korea.
So, the fact that Japanese called the Okinawan martial art Karate, writing it 唐手, means they knew it came from Korea. No one knows from when it began to be called Karate and how. Still, we can guess by the inscription on the Bell of All Nations of 1458 that it would have been no secret at the time of the early Ryukyu Kingdom that the royal family and ruling people of Okinawa were from Korea. It is also highly probable that many Japanese and Chinese were aware that they were descendants of the Koryo rebel force. Then, when they found the martial arts they practiced then, it would have been quite natural the Japanese called it Karate. 18]
18] Among the many names of the martial art in the 19 century, the On’yomi reading of 唐手 Do-Te seems to have been caused by the early 19 century practitioners who, influenced by the Chinese Kungfu, were inclined to think it was from Tang China. They were not linguists or historian, nor they were the secret inheritor of the family regimen. The unchanging fact is that Chinese did not use the word 唐手, and the 唐 in the 唐手, especially when pronounced Kara, cannot be interpreted as meaning China. Still, it is noteworthy that Okinawans called it just ti . Here again we do not know the ti sound is the changed form of the Japanese te for 手, or the employment of the character 手 was made by the Japanese in vocalization of the ti as Okinawan were found to call their martial art.
The name change to 空手 was officially taken in Japan from the 1930s in a conscious effort to obviate the confusion the '唐' in the original Chinese spelling had caused and might generate. But, the pronunciation Kara remains in its appellation, and the claim that Karate came from China gets louder because it was written 唐手 originally and 唐 Tang in 唐手 was China and because “all the martial arts originated from China”. Here, you are in the middle of the typical pattern of dispute over the culture among the three countries in the East Asia.
Conclusion
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