The
Shakyas were settled in the territory bounded by the Himalayas in the north Nepal
, The Rohini (the present-day
Kobana, a tributory of the Rapti) in the east and the Rapti in the south. Some
Buddhist texts, Mahāvastu, Mahavamsa and Sumangalavilasini give
accounts of the Śhākyas.[2]
Indologist
Michael Witzel has suggested that the similarity of the name Śhākya and Śaka is no coincidence. He thinks the Śhākyas were
"an early incursion of the Scythians" into India and Nepal.[5]
The
Shākyas appear to have retained features that have other Indic or Vedic
precedent such as burial mounds (stūpas), which are referred to in the
Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa as "demonic" (ŚB 12.8.1.5), and are similar to the
Kurgan mounds in Central Asia. Witzel has also suggested, informally, that the
idea of being judged on the basis of your actions in life comes into India from
Zoroastrianism. Certainly karma has no Vedic precedent, and Johannes Bronkhorst
has argued that Brahmins were assimilating the idea of karma from another possible
connection with Iran is the division of the person into body, speech and mind
by Buddhists, which has no Vedic precedent but is prominent in Zoroastrianism.[6]
However by the time we know of them the Śākyas have been thoroughly Indianised
.[citation needed]
The
Sākyas were one of a number of small tribes—Kāmāla, Malla, Vṛji, Licchavi, etc—who do not appear in
the Ṛgveda. Pāṇini (ca 5th century BCE) knows the Mallas and Vṛji as desert
tribes in Rajasthan, and Alexander's ambassadors met a tribe called Malloi in
the same region in Nepal Kathmandu,Pokhara Palpa etc. They appear to have enter India from the west some time after
the Vedas were completed (ca. 1000 BCE) and then migrated east well before the
time of the Buddha (ca. 480-400 BCE). An abrupt climate change ca. 850 BCE
caused Western India to have an arid period which may have been what set off
the migration. This also coincides with a moist period on the Central Asia
Steppes and a massive expansion of the Sycthian culture from the region of Tuva
westwards to the Black Sea.[7]
By
the time of the Buddha the Śākya nation had been subsumed into the Kingdom of Kosala under King Pasenadi.
The accounts of
Buddhist texts
In
several places in the Pāli Canon, including the Ambaṭṭha Sutta (D.i.92),
the progenitors of the Śākyas are related to King Okkāka. Pāli Okkāka is
identified with the Sanskrit Ikṣvāku, who is known from Purāṇic stories, and in
Jainism he is an ancestor to all of the Tirthaṅkaras. The king banishes his
elder brothers from his kingdom and they make their home on the slopes of the
Himalayas. But they can find no one suitable to marry, so they take their own
sisters as wives, and these incestuous relationships give birth to the Śākyas.
Given the prejudice against incest in India society generally it is remarkable
that this detail was preserved, and this suggests that it might have a grain of
truth. If so it points to Iran "there is good evidence for this practice
called xᵛaētuuadaθa, so-called next-of-kin or close-kin marriage."[8]
The
Śākyas are mentioned in later Buddhist texts as well including the Mahāvastu (ca.
late 2nd century BCE), Mahāvaṃsa and Sumaṅgalavilāsinī (ca. 5th century CE),
mostly in the accounts of the birth of the Buddha, as a part of the Adichchabandhus
(kinsmen of the sun)[2] or the Ādichchas (solar race) and as
descendants of the legendary king Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka)
There lived once upon a time a king
of the Śhākya, a
scion of the solar race, whose name was Śuddhodana.
He was pure in conduct, and beloved of the Śhākya like the autumn moon. He had
a wife, splendid, beautiful, and steadfast, who was called the Great Māyā, from her resemblance to Māyā the Goddess.
—Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa,
I.1-2
The
Buddhist text Mahavamsa (II, 1-24), traces the origin of the Sakyas
(Śhākyas) to king Okkaka (Ikshvaku) and gives their genealogy from Mahasammata,
an ancestor of Okkaka. This list comprises the names of a number of prominent
kings of the Ikshvaku dynasty,
which include Mandhata and Sagara.[2] According to this text, Okkamukha was
the eldest son of Okkaka. Sivisamjaya and Sihassara were the son and grandson
of Okkamukha. King Sihassara had eighty-two thousand sons and grandsons, who
were together known as the Shakyas. The youngest son of Sihassara was Jayasena.
Jayasena had a son, Sihahanu, and a daughter, Yashodhara (not to be confused
with prince Shiddhartha's wife), who was married to Devadahasakka.
Devadahasakka had two daughters, Anjana and Kachchana. Sihahanu married Kachchana,
and they had five sons and two daughters, Shuddhodana was one of them. Shuddhodana
had two queens, MahaMaya and Prajapati, both daughters of Anjana. Shiddhartha
(Gautama Buddha) was the son of Shuddhodana and MahaMaya. Rahula was the son of
Shiddhartha and Yashodara (also known as Bhaddakachchana), daughter of
Suppabuddha and granddaughter of Anjana.[4][9]
Shakya administration
According
to the Mahavastu and the Lalitavistara, the seat of the Shakya
administration was the saṃsthāgāra (Pali:santhāgāra) (assembly hall) at Kapilavastu
now Nepal. A new building for the Shakya samsthagara was constructed at the
time of Gautama Buddha, which was inaugurated by him. The highest
administrative authority was the Shakya Parishad, comprising 500
members, which met in the samsthagara to transact any important business. The Shakya
Parishad was headed by an elected raja, who presided over the
meetings.[2]
Annexation by Kosala
Viḍūḍabha,
the son of Pasenadi and Vāsavakhattiyā, the daughter of a Śākya
named Mahānāma by a slave girl ascended the throne of Kosala after overthrowing his father. As an act of vengeance
for cheating Kosala by sending his mother, the daughter of a slave woman for
marriage to his father, he invaded the Śākya territory, massacred them and
annexed it.[1
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