In a 13th century Korean chronicle, there’s a story of a princess
Suriratna from ancient India. As the princess reached the age of
marriage, her parents saw a god in their dream. The god told them
to send the princess to marry the unmarried king of the far-east
country called Gaya. Princess Suriratna was sent on a ship and
after travelling for two months she reached the fast east and got
married to the king Suro. The princess is called with the name Heo
Hwang-Ok in Korea and even today there are people with certain
specific surnames who consider her to be their ancestor.
This beautiful cultural connection between India and South Korea
appears on the joint issue stamp of 2019.
Indian postage stamps carry many such stories about the Indian
culture and heritage. They also carry stories of common threads
that bind two distant cultures together. The Joint issue stamps are
the best story tellers of such international cultural connections. By
observing them and by learning about them helps everybody to
improve their knowledge about distant lands.
-Prof. Shailesh Mulay
Faculty