Inmyeonjo (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...

: 인면조,

Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...

: 人面鳥, literally ''Human face bird'') is a

mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

creature from

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

that appears as a bird with a human face. Most of them are women, and some are male. Inmyeonjo is known as a sacred bird that connects the sky with the land, often appearing in the ancient tomb mural of

Three Kingdoms of Korea Samhan or the Three Kingdoms of Korea () refers to the three kingdoms of Goguryeo (고구려, 高句麗), Baekje (백제, 百濟), and Silla (신라, 新羅). Goguryeo was later known as Goryeo (고려, 高麗), from which the modern name ''Kor ...

. In the case of

Goguryeo Goguryeo (37 BC–668 AD) ( ) also called Goryeo (), was a Korean kingdom located in the northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula and the southern and central parts of Northeast China. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled most ...

, it can be found in several tomb murals such as the Anak County tombs, the ancient Dukheungri tombs, the Samsilchong, and the Mooyongchong. Named as Cheonchu(天秋) and Mansei(萬歲) in the ancient Dukheungri tombs in

Nampo Nampo (North Korean official spelling: Nampho; ), also spelled Namp'o, is the second largest city by population and an important seaport in North Korea, which lies on the northern shore of the Taedong River, 15 km east of the river's mouth. ...

South Pyongan Province South Pyongan Province (Phyŏngannamdo; ) is a province of North Korea. The province was formed in 1896 from the southern half of the former Pyongan Province, remained a province of Korea until 1945, then became a province of North Korea. Its ca ...

in 1976, they are a symbol of longevity, known to live for a thousand years. In the case of

Silla Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms of K ...

, the gilt-bronze shoes excavated in

Gyeongju Gyeongju ( ko, 경주, ), historically known as ''Seorabeol'' ( ko, 서라벌, ), is a coastal city in the far southeastern corner of North Gyeongsang Province in South Korea. It is the second largest city by area in the province after Andong, ...

is shown. In the case of

Baekje Baekje or Paekche (, ) was a Korean kingdom located in southwestern Korea from 18 BC to 660 AD. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla. Baekje was founded by Onjo, the third son of Goguryeo's founder Jum ...

, four inmyeonjos are found in the

Gilt-bronze Incense Burner of Baekje The Gilt-bronze Incense Burner of Baekje was designated as the 287th National Treasure of Korea on May 30, 1996. Currently housed at the Buyeo National Museum, it was originally excavated at an ancient temple site in Neungsan-ri, Buyeo County in ...

. In particular, there are many opinions that inmyeonjo in the Silver Cup with Bronze Stand (銅托銀盞) is the same as it in Goguryeo for a symbol of

longevity The word " longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography. However, the term ''longevity'' is sometimes meant to refer only to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas ''life expectancy'' is always d ...

. On the other hand, there are some opinions that it is

Kalaviṅka Kalaviṅka ( sa, कलविङ्क ''kalaviṅka''; Pali: karavika; ''Jiālíngpínqié''; ja, 迦陵頻伽, Karyōbinga, ko, 가릉빈가; vi, Ca Lăng Tần Già; my, ကရဝိက် karawik; th, การเวก, Malay: ''karawek ...

because of shape of the wings. Kalaviṅka is an imaginary creature that tells the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

's words that appear in ancient Indian myths and

Buddhist texts Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...

. The opening ceremony of the

2018 Winter Olympic Games , nations = 93 , athletes = 2,922 (1,680 men and 1,242 women) , events = 102 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , opening = , closing = , opened_by = President Moon Jae-in , cauldron = Kim Yun-a , stadium = Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium , winte ...

PyeongChang Pyeongchang (; in full, ''Pyeongchang-gun'' ; ) is a county in the province of Gangwon-do, South Korea, located in the Taebaek Mountains region. It is home to several Buddhist temples, including Woljeongsa. It is about east southeast of Seou ...

featured an inmyeonjo puppet that went viral on social media.

Korean culture

In Korea, after the 5th century, artifacts and mural paintings that show the shape of a human-faced bird in Goguryeo and

tombs are found. The inmyeonjo is depicted in the bottom of the Silver Cup with Bronze Stand(銅托銀盞) excavated from the

Tomb of King Muryeong The Tomb of King Muryeong, also known as Songsan-ri Tomb No. 7 (), is the ancient tumulus of King Muryeong, who ruled the Baekje from 501 to 523, and his queen. The rarity of intact Baekje tombs makes this one of the major archaeological discover ...

Gongju Gongju ([]; Gongju-si) is a city in South Chungcheong province, South Korea. History Gongju was formerly named Ungjin and was the capital of Baekje from AD 475 to 538. In this period, Baekje was under threat from Goguryeo. Goguryeo had overrun ...

South Chungcheong Province South Chungcheong Province ( ko, 충청남도, ''Chungcheongnam-do''), also known as Chungnam, is a province of South Korea. South Chungcheong has a population of 2,059,871 (2014) and has a geographic area of 8,204 km2 (3,168 sq mi) located in ...

. The creature's head is human, but the body and wings are a bird's, and the head is wearing a corolla with feathers of birds. In the tomb of Dukheungri in

, and in the Mooyongchong in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

, mural paintings are found. In particular, the inmyeonjo painted on the ceiling of the Mooyongchong had been wearing long hats that

Xian Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqin ...

loved to show the fusion of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

and

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of Philosophy, philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of China, Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmo ...

culture.

Buddhist culture

It is interpreted that it contains the meaning to pray for Sukhavati(極樂往生) of

Pure land A pure land is the celestial realm of a buddha or bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism. The term "pure land" is particular to East Asian Buddhism () and related traditions; in Sanskrit the equivalent concept is called a buddha-field (Sanskrit ). Th ...

(淨土) under the influence of Kalaviṅka (迦陵迦迦) of Buddhism found in the tombs of Goguryo and

. Kalaviṅka is a bird that appears in the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

word "kalavinka" in Chinese characters. It is a bird that comes from living in

Sukhavati Sukhavati (IAST: ''Sukhāvatī''; "Blissful") is a pure land of Amitābha in Mahayana Buddhism. It is also called the Land of Bliss or Western Pure Land, and is the most well-known of Buddhist pure lands, due to the popularity of Pure Land Budd ...

Amitābha Amitābha ( sa, अमिताभ, IPA: ), also known as Amitāyus, is the primary Buddha of Pure Land Buddhism. In Vajrayana Buddhism, he is known for his longevity, discernment, pure perception, purification of aggregates, and deep awarene ...

. It is said that the upper part of the body is a person, and the lower part is a bird. Also, it is said that it has very beautiful and strange voice before it comes out from the shell. So it has many other names, and it is considered a symbol of the Buddha's teachings. In Buddhist art in East Asia, not only in Korea but also in China and Japan, there are a wide range of artifacts depicting Kalaviṅka, which are also depicted as dancing or playing music on the murals of

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

. On the other hand, Buddhism's Kalaviṅka is influenced by Indian mythology.

Gandharva A gandharva () is a member of a class of celestial beings in Dharmic religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, whose males are divine performers such as musicians and singers, and the females are divine dancers. In Hinduism, they are ...

is a man whose an upper body is male, and a lower body of a bird or horse, and has a golden wing, while serving

Indra Indra (; Sanskrit: इन्द्र) is the king of the devas (god-like deities) and Svarga (heaven) in Hindu mythology. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes/ref> I ...

Hindu mythology Hindu mythology is the body of myths and literature attributed to, and espoused by, the adherents of the Hindu religion, found in Hindu texts such as the Vedic literature, epics like ''Mahabharata'' and ''Ramayana'', the Puranas, and reg ...

and playing musics of Devaloka(天界). In the Southeast Asian Buddhism such as

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

and other countries, inmyeonjo is a god with

who are in charge of music. Inmyeonjo also appears in traditional

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of t ...

and

culture. It is recorded in the "''

Classic of Mountains and Seas The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', also known as ''Shan Hai Jing'', formerly romanized as the ''Shan-hai Ching'', is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed sinc ...

''". They are also said to have a bird's body on the face of a man and live as a name for a long time.

Western culture

Creatures resembling the inmyeonjo also appears in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

os and

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

os records include the name

Siren Siren or sirens may refer to: Common meanings * Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies * Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology Places * Siren (town), Wisconsin * Siren, Wisc ...

. At first, only the head was human, and the body was drawn as a bird, but gradually the entire upper body was depicted as a beautiful woman with musical instruments. Sirens were thought to seduce the sailors in a very sweet sound and sink their ships. In

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

's "

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

", the name "

Harpy In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, a harpy (plural harpies, , ; lat, harpȳia) is a half-human and half-bird personification of storm winds. They feature in Homeric poems. Descriptions They were generally depicted as birds with the hea ...

" appears. According to legend, a harpy is a bird with a woman's face, flying faster than the wind and eating children and human souls.

In the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang

The giant mythological creature, called “Inmyeonjo” in Korean, appeared onstage following the countdown in the opening ceremony of the

. Many viewers focused on a giant puppet of a human-faced bird. It soon moved to the center of the stage, surrounded by the

Four Symbols The Four Symbols (, literally meaning "four images"), are four mythological creatures appearing among the Chinese constellations along the ecliptic, and viewed as the guardians of the four cardinal directions. These four creatures are also refe ...

"blue dragon, white tiger, red phoenix, black tortoise" and dancing women dressed in costumes of the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryeo. The animal's long neck and dragon-like body, combined with its human face, grabbed the attention of many spectators. “Through this, I wanted to depict a world where humans live in peaceful harmony with ancient nature and animals,” the opening ceremony's executive creative director, Song Seung-whan, said. The Inmyeonjo is a legendary animal that appears in East Asian mythology and Buddhist scripture as a fantastical creature with a human head and a bird's torso. Inmyeonjo is a fantastical animal known to travel across the land and the sky and live a thousand years, symbolizing longevity. It dates back to the Goguryeo period of Korean history, even appearing in cave drawings. The Inmyeonjo is supposed to appear when there's peace on earth, connecting the heavens and the earth for a thousand years. The appearance of the facial expressions of Inmyeonjo has led to a wide variety of responses from around the world. There were negative opinions that it was horrible and bizarre, while there were positive opinions that it was marvelous at first seeing mythical creatures, respecting their culture.

References

{{Korean mythology Legendary birds Korean mythology Korean legendary creatures

Korean culture

Buddhist culture

Western culture

In the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang

See also

References