The Eighteen Hùng Kings and the State of Văn Lang: What Old Histories Record and What Is Legend

What are the Hùng Kings and the state of Văn Lang according to old histories?

Văn Lang, as old Vietnamese histories record it, was the first state in the sequence of dynasties recounted, founded by the eldest son of Lạc Long Quân, who took the title Hùng Vương and divided the country into fifteen bộ. This is the starting point of the Ngoại kỷ section of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, and it is also the section that the Lê dynasty historians themselves marked as based on unofficial histories, tales, and records rather than on contemporary documents.

Việt Nam sử lược (1920) by Trần Trọng Kim records that Lạc Long Quân enthroned his eldest son as king of Văn Lang with the title Hùng Vương; the fifteen bộ of this state were Văn Lang, Châu Diên, Phúc Lộc, Tân Hưng, Vũ Định, Vũ Ninh, Lục Hải, Ninh Hải, Dương Tuyền, Giao Chỉ, Cửu Chân, Hoài Hoan, Cửu Đức, Việt Thường, and Bình Văn^[2]. The book also records that the Hồng Bàng line reigned for 18 generations, then reckons that from Kinh Dương Vương to the 18th Hùng Vương there were 20 kings in 2,622 years, nearly 150 years per reign, so that "the stories of the Hồng Bàng era are not certain to be true"^[2].

The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, in its Phàm lệ (editorial principles, cited here from the translation by Mạc Bảo Thần, or Nhượng Tống, printed in 1945), itself states that what is recorded in the Ngoại kỷ comes from unofficial histories, and that overly strange matters were left out; and that from Hùng Vương backward there is no chronology, because the order of succession of the kings of that time cannot be known^[1]. This is an important admission: the chronicler himself clearly stated his limits.

Why did old histories bring legend into official history?

The short answer is that there was no other source. When Ngô Sĩ Liên compiled the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư in the fifteenth century, according to the Phàm lệ he relied on the two Đại Việt sử ký of Lê Văn Hưu and Phan Phu Tiên, and further consulted Northern histories, unofficial histories, and various tales and records^[1]. There were no inscriptions and no contemporary documents from the state of Văn Lang to compare against.

Based on the commentary in the translation of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, the works Ngô Sĩ Liên classified as Northern history include the Thông giám cương mục of Chu Hy and Kim Lý Tường, while the unofficial history is Vũ Quỳnh's Lĩnh Nam trích quái, and the group of tales and records includes Sái Trầm's Thư truyện, Trịnh Tiều's Thông chí, and Cao Hùng Trưng's An Nam chí^[1]. According to the translator, what Ngô Sĩ Liên calls "things seen" were probably the Hùng King temple at Sơn Vi and the Thục King temple at Cổ Loa, while "things heard and handed down" were a few myths and a few institutions of the Mường people^[1].

Thus the Ngoại kỷ section of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư is not a chapter of history based on administrative or contemporary annalistic material, but a chapter reconstructed from legend, spirit records, and local memory, with some filtering. The fact that Nguyễn dynasty historians later reduced the role of Kinh Dương Vương and Lạc Long Quân in the Khâm định Việt sử thông giám cương mục shows that even within the feudal historiographical tradition there were adjustments across periods.

The eighteen Hùng Kings: where does that number come from?

This is the central question. The number of eighteen Hùng kings does not appear as an annalistic datum, but as a figure handed down in unofficial histories and spirit records.

The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư itself, in its Phàm lệ, states: "From Hùng Vương backward there is no chronology, because the order of succession of the kings of those reigns cannot be known. Some say it was eighteen reigns, but that is probably not certain!"^[1]. This sentence is very noteworthy: the court historian does not assert that there were exactly eighteen reigns, but only records that some said so and expresses doubt.

The Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca, in its section on Hùng Vương and Văn Lang, has verse lines saying that the kings all bore the title Hùng Vương, the kings succeeded to the title and the officials succeeded to the name; the Lạc hầu held the office of tướng điều nguyên, the Lạc tướng held military authority, and the office of Bồ chính hữu tư was added, with titles of one rank and grades of one kind^[3]. That is, the kings all succeeded to the title Hùng Vương without taking separate titles, officials also succeeded to office names in line, and the officialdom consisted of Lạc hầu, Lạc tướng, and Bồ chính. This explains why old histories could not establish a chronology for each reign: the kings had no distinguishing temple names.

The number eighteen does appear in written sources: a note in the 1945 translation quotes Cao Hùng Trưng's An Nam chí as saying that Văn Lang "was handed down for eighteen generations"^[1], and Việt Nam sử lược records that the Hồng Bàng line reigned for 18 generations^[2]. None of these texts names the individual reigns. To date, no archaeological evidence has determined the number of Hùng king reigns, and researchers still regard this as an open question.

Did the state of Văn Lang really exist, or is it only legend?

This is a question whose most honest answer is: there was a material culture, but there is no contemporary written evidence of a state called Văn Lang with fifteen bộ.

As recorded in Việt Nam sử lược, the state of Văn Lang was divided into fifteen bộ, each tied to a region under the place names in use when the book was printed (1920), such as Văn Lang (Bạch Hạc, Vĩnh Yên province), Giao Chỉ (Hà Nội, Hưng Yên, Nam Định, Ninh Bình), Cửu Chân (Thanh Hóa), Hoài Hoan (Nghệ An), Cửu Đức (Hà Tĩnh), and Việt Thường (Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị)^[2]. This is the geographical placement of old histories, based on comparison with later place names, not on archaeological material.

The Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca also records that Văn Lang was divided into fifteen bộ, with the Hùng Vương capital at châu Phong, that is the Bạch Hạc area where the Thao river joins^[3]. The verse history names the bộ: Phong Châu, Phúc Lộc, Chu Diên, Giao Chỉ, Tân Hưng, Vũ Ninh, Dương Tuyền, Vũ Định, Hoài Hoan, Cửu Chân, Việt Thường, Lục Hải, Ninh Hải, and says of two of them, Bình Văn and Cửu Đức, that they "retain their names, but their mountain and river boundaries are not yet clear"^[3].

Modern archaeologists often compare the land old histories call Văn Lang with archaeological sites of the Đông Sơn culture, distributed mainly in the Red River, Mã River, and Cả River basins. However, a clear distinction is needed: Đông Sơn culture is an archaeological entity whose dates can be determined by scientific methods, while "the state of Văn Lang" is a political entity described in old histories. Identifying the two is a hypothesis, not a proven fact.

The legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ: how do old histories record it?

This legend is the most widely known part, but it is also the part that old histories themselves clearly mark as fabulous.

Việt Nam sử lược recounts that Lạc Long Quân married the daughter of King Đế Lai, Âu Cơ, and the two gave birth to one hundred sons at once; afterward Lạc Long Quân told Âu Cơ that he belonged to the line of Long Quân while she belonged to the line of immortals, and that the two could not live together long, so they divided fifty sons to follow the mother to the mountains and fifty to follow the father to the South Sea^[2].

The Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca records this legend in lục bát verse, and has a noteworthy line: "Though the egg-sack story is fabulous, compared with the Huyền Điểu birth of Shang, how is it different?"^[3]. That is, the verse history itself admits the hundred-egg story is fabulous, and only compares it with the legend of the Huyền Điểu birth of Shang in Chinese history. This is a very characteristic way the verse history handles it: recounting but not asserting it as fact.

Nhật Nguyệt's understanding: the legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ, the hundred eggs, and the parting of the children to the mountains and the sea should be read as an origin myth, whose function is to explain why the Vietnamese have many different local groups sharing one ancestry, rather than as a population record or a historical event. This is the site's interpretation, not an assertion of old histories.

The fifteen bộ of Văn Lang: a comparison table according to old histories

The table below compares how the fifteen bộ are located in two sources: Việt Nam sử lược, and a note in the 1945 translation of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, which cites Nguyễn Trãi's Dư địa chí. The province names in the table are those used in the two books, not present-day administrative units; this is the placement of old histories, not one based on archaeological material.

The Hùng Kings in folk belief and the UNESCO dossier

Alongside the historiographical story, there is an independent cultural fact: Hùng King worship has existed for centuries and is maintained by the community.

The nomination dossier submitted by the Vietnamese state to UNESCO in 2012 for the heritage "Worship of Hùng kings in Phú Thọ" (Tín ngưỡng thờ cúng Hùng Vương ở Phú Thọ) cited many research works, including Địa chí Vĩnh Phú by Ngô Quang Nam and Xuân Thiêm (1986), the collection Hùng Vương và tín ngưỡng thờ cúng Hùng Vương selected by Nguyễn Chí Bền (2011), Tạ Chí Đại Trường's Thần, người và đất Việt (1989), and Toan Ánh's Nếp cũ tín ngưỡng Việt Nam (1974)^[4].

UNESCO inscribed the Worship of Hùng Kings in Phú Thọ on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012^[4]. This inscription recognizes the value of a living cultural practice, not a certification of the historical authenticity of the legend.

In folk belief, people attending the Hùng temple festival believe that the Hùng kings are the common ancestors of the nation, and that worship is a way of repaying the debt to one's origins. This is a community belief, recorded in the heritage dossier, not a conclusion of historical science.

How did modern historians view the Hùng Kings?

This is a point showing that even among modern Vietnamese historians there were differing attitudes.

Trần Trọng Kim in Việt Nam sử lược (1920) retold the legend but wrote plainly that "the stories of the Hồng Bàng era are not certain to be true," and advised readers of history to tell which stories are real and which are invented^[2]. In his view, even if a Hồng Bàng line did rule then, it was perhaps no more than something like a quan lang chief among the Mường^[2].

In the commentary of the 1945 translation of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư by Mạc Bảo Thần (Nhượng Tống), the critical attitude is much stronger: the translator expressed a wish to send both the Hùng king and the Thục king back to the grass huts and thatched shelters of former times, because he had not a bit of trust in them^[1]. This is the translator's personal opinion, placed in the commentary, and it reflects a mid-twentieth-century historiographical tendency to separate legend from historical sources.

Nhật Nguyệt's understanding: these two attitudes do not contradict each other in that both acknowledge that the Ngoại kỷ section of old histories cannot be used as a chronology. They differ in that Trần Trọng Kim kept the story as a part of national memory, while the translator of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư wanted to separate it entirely. Today's reader may choose either way of reading, as long as it is clear whether one is reading legend or historical sources.

What do the historical sources say about the Hùng Kings?

The table below summarizes the main sources.

Conclusion: how should the Hùng Kings be read correctly?

The surest point is: old Vietnamese histories, from the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư to Việt Nam sử lược, all record that Văn Lang had fifteen bộ and that its kings successively bore the title Hùng Vương, but the historians themselves also noted clearly that this section is based on unofficial histories, has no chronology, and that the number eighteen reigns is an uncertain saying. The legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ, the hundred eggs, and the parting of the children to the mountains and the sea is origin-myth material, brought into official history by historians with filtering, and even the verse history itself admits it is fabulous.

Equally certain is: Hùng King worship is a living cultural practice, inscribed by UNESCO in 2012, and has value independent of the question of the historical authenticity of each legendary detail. Today's reader can both venerate ancestors according to tradition and know clearly what is historical source and what is legend. The two do not exclude each other.