What Are Jeoseung Seolhwa?
When Koreans speak of the afterlife, they rarely begin with abstract doctrine. Instead, they tell stories.
저승설화 (jeoseung seolhwa) are “underworld tales”—narratives that imagine what happens in 저승 (jeoseung), the Korean land of the dead. In scholarship, you will also encounter terms such as:
| Korean Term | English Equivalent |
|---|---|
| 저승 체험담 | Underworld experience tales |
| 저승 환생담 | Stories of visiting the underworld and returning to life |
| 저승 왕래담 | Back-and-forth journeys to the other world |
At their core, these stories are folk experiments grappling with existential questions:
- What happens after we die?
- Who judges us, and by what standard?
- Can fate be negotiated, extended, or even circumvented?
They are not systematic theology. They are narrative blueprints—maps of how ordinary Koreans have imagined the afterlife for centuries.
Two Worlds, One Continuum: The Korean Afterlife
In many jeoseung seolhwa, the underworld is not a distant heaven or hell concealed in the clouds. It is more like the next district over.
Traditional Korean thought treats 이승 (iseung, this world) and 저승 (jeoseung, the next) as:
- Separate but connected spaces—not a total rupture, but a continuation on a different plane
- Horizontally extended—sometimes one simply walks down a road, crosses a bridge, or passes through a gate to arrive
2.1 Two Foundational Ideas
Continuity
Everyone goes to jeoseung—virtuous and wicked alike. It is, fundamentally, the place where the dead reside, just as iseung is where the living dwell.
Judgment and Cause-Effect
What you did in this life will catch up with you. Over time, jeoseung crystallizes into:
- A courtroom of strict judgment
- A space where 인과응보 (ingwa eungbo, karmic cause and effect) unfolds with unnerving precision
2.2 The Influence of Buddhism and Daoism
With the arrival of these traditions, the indigenous vision gains greater structure:
| Concept | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 윤회 (reincarnation) | Past, present, and future lives connected in a cycle |
| 명부 (myeongbu) | The bureaucratic “Dark Office” of the dead |
| 시왕 (Ten Kings of Hell) | A full judicial hierarchy evaluating each soul’s record |
The result is a uniquely Korean afterlife: half village extension, half cosmic courtroom—familiar yet terrifyingly orderly.
Two Main Story Types: Returning Souls and Underworld Officials
Scholars typically group jeoseung seolhwa into several subtypes, but for English readers, one simple division works effectively:
- Return-from-the-Underworld Stories (환생담, 연명담)
- Underworld-Official Stories (명관담, “tales of underworld magistrates”)
Let us examine each in turn.
3.1. Return-from-the-Underworld Tales: “I Died, Went to Hell, and Came Back”
In these narratives, a person:
- Dies suddenly—by illness, accident, or bureaucratic mistake
- Is dragged by 저승사자 (grim reapers) to the underworld
- Witnesses courts, punishments, and the geography of hell
- Learns that a mistake has been made—or secures special mercy
- Is sent back to life, sometimes with an extended lifespan or renewed moral resolve
Early Written Examples
| Text | Summary |
|---|---|
| “Seon Yul Returns to Life” (선율환생) in Samguk Yusa | A monk dies, appears before the underworld court, and is revived after an error is discovered |
| Park Se-geo’s journey in Yongcheondamjeokgi (용천담적기) | A scholar tours hell, witnesses torments, and returns—chastened and morally transformed |
The Oral Variant Pattern
Oral versions often follow a memorable sequence:
- Someone dies before their time
- In jeoseung, a ledger check reveals a name mix-up or misfiled lifespan
- The soul is ordered back, but the original body is already buried
- They return reborn in another village or body
This logic underlies the proverb “Saenggeo Jincheon, sageo Yongin” (“The living go to Jincheon, the dead go to Yongin”)—linked in folklore to an underworld mix-up and reincarnation into a different town.
Common Motifs
| Motif | Description |
|---|---|
| Bargaining with reapers | Using wine, wit, or sheer audacity to gain a few more years of life |
| Witnessing the torments of hell | Graphic but didactic scenes meant to frighten the living into better behavior |
| Granting favors | On the way back, the hero may carry messages or fulfill requests for the dead |
The emotional core is not a longing for heaven, but a profoundly human wish:
“Let me live a little longer—and live better this time.”
3.2. Underworld-Official Tales: When Good Magistrates Become Kings of Hell
The second cluster reverses the direction: instead of the wrong person being dragged below, the right person is invited down—and promoted.
In 명관담 (myeonggwan-dam, “tales of underworld officials”), a brilliant, upright person dies and is recruited as:
- An underworld judge (판관)
- A grim reaper (사자)
- Sometimes even 염라대왕 (King of the Underworld) himself
Typical Heroes
Historically revered scholars and magistrates such as Park U, Kim In-hu, Kim Chi, and Shin Gyeong-yeon appear in anecdotal collections (필기, 야담), rumored to continue their just governance after death.
Key Messages
| Theme | Implication |
|---|---|
| The preciousness of good governance | The cosmos reassigns righteous officials to underworld posts |
| Continuity of justice | A magistrate’s jurisdiction simply shifts from this world’s courts to the next |
Oral Folklore Variations
Oral traditions echo these ideas in more playful tones:
- A son meets his deceased father, now King of the Underworld, and negotiates his own return to life
- A poor man encounters a former friend who has become an underworld official and receives wealth or protection in return
Even when humorous, these tales reveal a deep cultural longing: for someone trustworthy to preside over the cosmic bureaucracy.
From Oral Tale to Literary Fiction
Jeoseung seolhwa do not remain confined to the village firepit. Their motifs migrate into Korea’s written literature, branching in several directions:
| Genre | Examples & Characteristics |
|---|---|
| Buddhist narratives | Samguk Yusa includes early return-from-hell tales like Seon Yul’s revival, embedding underworld journeys within Buddhist karmic teaching |
| Classical ghost fiction | In Kim Si-seup’s Geumo Sinhwa (금오신화, 15th c.), underworld visions appear within elegant literati novellas, where the supernatural becomes a vehicle for philosophical reflection |
| Late Joseon novels, anecdote collections, and yadam | Underworld courts, mistaken deaths, and negotiations with reapers become reusable narrative modules—serving as moral exempla, humorous episodes, or even parodies mocking underworld bureaucracy |
Across these genres, the underworld remains legible—a familiar courthouse rather than an abstract realm.
What Jeoseung Seolhwa Tell Us About Korean Attitudes to Death
Beneath the demons, chains, and cauldrons, jeoseung seolhwa are surprisingly this-worldly. Several distinctive features stand out:
5.1. They Are About Life More Than Death
Although these tales dwell on hell, punishment, and judgment, most stories end not in annihilation but in:
- Extended life (연명)
- A second chance (환생)
- A renewed commitment to moral living
In many tales, those who have done good do not go straight to paradise; instead, their lifespan is lengthened. To live longer, here and now, is itself the reward.
Key Insight: This reveals a distinctly Korean emphasis—the value of extended, improved earthly life over distant, abstract salvation.
5.2. Morality Is Enforced, but Never Abstract
The underworld court is rigorous, yet its concerns remain concrete:
| Question Asked in the Underworld Court |
|---|
| Was this person just in lawsuits? |
| Did they cheat, abuse power, or mistreat family? |
| Did they fulfill vows, debts, and social obligations? |
Punishments are vivid and theatrical, but the message is clear: your daily ethics follow you into the next world.
5.3. The Afterlife Is Bureaucratic, Not Chaotic
Korean hell is not a random nightmare. It operates on:
- Ledgers
- Officials
- Summons and warrants
- Mistakes that can be corrected—but only within the logic of the system
This mirrors the historical world of the yangban bureaucracy, projecting its logic onto the cosmos. It also offers a strange comfort: if the universe is a court, there are rules, even if they are frighteningly strict.
Why Underworld Tales Matter for Understanding Korean Supernatural Culture
For English-speaking readers, jeoseung seolhwa provide an essential counterpart to more familiar Korean horror tropes like vengeful female ghosts or black-robed grim reapers.
They demonstrate that, in the Korean imagination:
| Insight | Implication |
|---|---|
| The boundary between life and death is passable | Only temporarily, but crossings do occur |
| Death is terrifying | Yet it is also negotiable, arguable, and narratable |
| Stories of hell are used to think about how to live well | Not merely how to die |
If you follow these tales from early Buddhist visions through classical fiction to modern retellings, a pattern emerges:
The underworld is less a final destination than a moral mirror—one that reflects this world back to us, sharpened and clarified.
Where We Go Next
In future Kwaidanote pieces, we will:
- Walk scene by scene through a classic return-from-the-underworld tale
- Examine an underworld-official story where a beloved magistrate is promoted to judge of the dead
- Compare these narratives with Japanese and Chinese afterlife journeys, noting what remains uniquely Korean
Through these readings, the Korean underworld will cease to be merely “hell” in the generic sense. It becomes what it has always been in the stories:
A parallel court, just one step beyond this life, where every deed is remembered—and where, sometimes, if you argue well enough, you might just be sent back to try again.