Dangun
Also known as: Dangun Wanggeom, Tangun
Mythological Narrative
The Samguk Yusa, quoting an older record, tells how Hwanung, a son of the heavenly ruler Hwanin, longed to govern the human world. Hwanin looked down on the peaks of Samwi and Taebaek, judged that his son could broadly benefit humankind, and gave him three heavenly seals. Hwanung descended with three thousand followers to the divine tree on the summit of Mount Taebaek, founded the City of God, and with the lords of wind, rain, and clouds administered some 360 human affairs. When the bear-woman Ungnyeo prayed for a child beneath the tree, Hwanung briefly took human form and married her; their son was Dangun Wanggeom.
Dangun made his capital at Pyongyang, named his realm Joseon, and later moved the seat to Asadal. He is said to have ruled for 1,500 years before withdrawing into the mountains of Asadal as a mountain god, aged 1,908. Later reckoning fixed the founding in 2333 BCE, year one of the Dangi calendar; October 3, National Foundation Day, remains a public holiday in South Korea.
Both the Samguk Yusa and the Jewang Ungi were compiled in the thirteenth century under Mongol pressure, and they cast Dangun as the shared ancestor of the whole peninsula, a narrative revived in every later crisis. The Chamseongdan altar on Manisan, Ganghwa Island, is held to be where he sacrificed to heaven, and a shrine to Hwanin, Hwanung, and Dangun stands on Mount Guwol; in 1993 North Korea announced the excavation of a Tomb of Dangun near Pyongyang.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## In the Samguk Yusa
Iryeon's *Samguk Yusa* gives two accounts. From a Chinese 'Book of Wei' it quotes that two thousand years earlier Dangun Wanggeom set his capital at Asadal and founded a state called Joseon, in the time of the sage-emperor Yao. From the Korean 'Old Record' it tells the full myth: born of Hwanung and Ungnyeo, Dangun made his capital at Pyongyang in the fiftieth year of Yao, called his state Joseon, later moved to Asadal on Mount Baegak, and ruled for fifteen hundred years. When the Zhou king enfeoffed Gija in Joseon, Dangun moved away, returned to Asadal, and became a mountain god, having lived 1,908 years. Iryeon himself notes that the traditional year does not match Yao's reign.
## The date and the nation
The date 2333 BCE for Dangun's founding, used for South Korea's National Foundation Day, is a later calculation by Joseon-dynasty historians, not the Samguk Yusa's own statement, and the historical state of Gojoseon is known from Chinese sources from about the fourth century BCE until its conquest by the Han in 108 BCE. Dangun became a powerful symbol of national identity, especially under Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945), when the religion Daejonggyo (founded 1909) and independence activists honored him as the common ancestor of all Koreans.
## Two Koreas
South Korea celebrates Gaecheonjeol on 3 October. North Korea announced in 1993 that it had found Dangun's bones near Pyongyang and built a large mausoleum in 1994; most historians outside North Korea regard the claim as political rather than archaeological.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Dangun.
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Jumong
Born from an egg after sunlight pursued his mother Yuhwa, daughter of the river god; a master archer who fled Buyeo over a bridge of fish and turtles and founded Goguryeo in 37 BCE.
Asadal
The city to which Dangun moved his capital and the mountain into which he finally withdrew as a mountain god; its name is often read as 'land of morning,' its location still disputed.
Cheonbuin
Three tokens given by the heavenly ruler Hwanin to his son Hwanung before his descent to Mount Taebaek; the text counts them but never describes them, and later tradition guesses at sword, mirror, and bell.
Ungnyeo
A she-bear who shared a cave with a tiger; by enduring darkness on mugwort and twenty cloves of garlic she became human, prayed for a child, and bore Dangun to Hwanung.