Daebyeol-wang

Daebyeol-wang is the elder of the twin sons of Cheonji-wang and Chongmyeong-buin. When the brothers climb the gourd vines to their father's court, they first draw giant bows to shoot down one of the two suns and one of the two moons, ending the alternating drought and frost that tormented the world. Cheonji-wang then sets the twins riddles and a flower-growing contest to decide who shall rule the living and who the dead. Daebyeol-wang, the wiser and more upright, ought by right to govern the living, but while he sleeps his younger brother swaps their flowering plants and claims the living world. Daebyeol-wang thus takes the realm of the dead, which he rules in perfect justice, so that the orderliness of the afterworld stands in pointed contrast to the strife and deceit that fill the living world under Sobyeol-wang.

Parentage

• parent: Cheonji-wangHyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)
• parent: Chongmyeong-buinHyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)

Domains

• death and the afterworld
• cosmic order and justice

Powers

• shoot down the second sun and moon
• rule and judge the world of the dead

Epithets

• 저승왕 — King of the Otherworld / Land of the DeadHyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)

Relations

• parent: Cheonji-wangHyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)
• parent: Chongmyeong-buinHyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)
• twin: Sobyeol-wangHyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)
• rival: Sobyeol-wangThe brothers compete for the living world; Sobyeol-wang wins it by trickery.Hyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary)

Sources

• Daebyeol-wang, the elder twin, shoots down the surplus sun and moon and, cheated of the living world, becomes ruler of the ordered world of the dead.: Hyun Yong-jun, Jeju-do musok jaryo sajeon [Dictionary of Jeju Shamanic Materials] (Seoul: Singu Munhwasa, 1980) (primary); Choi Won-oh, An Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2008) (secondary)