Shakya

Shakya (Pali: Sakya; Sanskrit: शाक्य) was an ancient

eastern sub-Himalayan ethnicity and clan of north-eastern Shakya
South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron
c. 7th century BCE–c. 5th century BCE
Age. The Shakyas were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha (an
aristocratic oligarchic republic), also known as the Shākya
Janapadaya.[3] The Shakyas were on the periphery, both
geographically and culturally, of the eastern Gangetic plain
in the Greater Magadha cultural region.[1][4]

Contents
Location Shakya among the Gaṇasaṅghas

Etymology
History
Origin
Statehood
Conquest by Kosala
Social and political organisation
Republican institutions
The Assembly
The Council
Shakya to the north of the Mahajanapadas
The mahārājā (Consul) in the post-Vedic period
Functioning of the Assembly Capital Kapilavastu
Class society
Common languages Prakrits

Culture Munda
Non-Vedic languages[1]
Language
Religion Śramaṇa sects of
Religion Hinduism[2]
Sun worship
Government Republic
Origin myth
Rājā  
Tree worship
Serpent worship Historical era Iron Age
Marriage customs • Established c. 7th century BCE
Funerary customs • Conquered by c. 5th century
Viḍūḍabha of BCE
Scythian origin hypothesis Kosala

Legacy Preceded by Succeeded by

Descendants Kosala Kosala
References
Today part of India

Sources Nepal

Location
The Shakyas lived along the foothills of the Himālaya mountains,
with their neighbours to the west and south being the kingdom of
Kosala, their neighbours to the east across the Rohiṇī river being
the related Koliya tribe, while on the north-east they bordered on
the Mallakas of Kusinārā. To the north, the territory of the Shakyas
stretched into the Himālayas until the forested regions of the
mountains, which formed their northern border.[3]

The capital of the Shakyas was the city of Kapilavastu.[3]

Etymology
Gautama Buddha, called
The name of the Shakyas is attested primarily in the Pāli forms Shakyamuni "Sage of the Shakyas,"
Sakya and Sakka, and the Sanskrit form Śākya.[3] the most famous Shakya. Seated
bronze from Tibet, 11th century.
The Shakyas' name was derived from the Sanskrit root śak (शक् )
(śaknoti (शक्नोति), more rarely śakyati (शक्यति) or śakyate (शक्यते))
meaning "to be able," "worthy," "possible," or "practicable."[3][5] The name of the Shakyas was also
derived from the name of the śaka or sāka tree,[6][5] which Bryan Levman has identified with either the
teak or sāla tree,[5][1] which is ultimately related to word śākhā (शाखा), meaning ‘branch,’[7] and was
connected to the Shakyas' practice of worshipping the śaka or sāka tree.[1]

History

Origin

The Shakyas were an eastern sub-Himalayan ethnic group on the periphery, both geographically and
culturally, of the eastern Gangetic plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region.[10][4] The Shakyas were of
‘mixed origin’ (saṃkīrṇa-yonayaḥ) of Indo-Aryan and Munda descent, with the former group forming a
minority.[10]

The Shakyas were closely related to their eastern neighbours, the Koliya tribe, with whom they
intermarried.[11]

Statehood

By the sixth century BCE, the Shakyas, the Koliyas, Moriyas, and Mallakas lived between the territories of
the Kauśalyas to the west and the Licchavikas and Vaidehas to the east, thus separating the Vajjika League
from the Kosala kingdom.[3] By that time, the Shakya republic had become a vassal state of the larger
Kingdom of Kosala.[12][13]
 During the fifth century itself, one of the members of the ruling
aristocratic oligarchy of the Shakyas was Suddhodana.
Suddhodana was married to the princess Māyā, who was the
daughter of a Koliya noble, and the son of Suddhodana and Māyā
was Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha and founder of
Buddhism.[3]

During the life of the Buddha, an armed feud opposed the Shakyas
and the Koliyas concerning the waters of the river Rohiṇī, which
formed the boundary between the two states and whose water was
needed by both of them to irrigate their crops. The intervention of
the Buddha finally put an end to these hostilities.[3]

After the death of the Buddha, the Shakyas claimed a share of his
relics from the Mallakas of Kusinārā on the grounds that he had
been a Shakya.[3]

Conquest by Kosala

Shortly after the Buddha's death, the Kauśalya king Viḍūḍabha,

who had overthrown his father Pasenadi, invaded the Shakya and
Koliya republics, seeking to conquer their territories because they
had once been part of Kosala. Viḍūḍabha finally triumphed over
the Shakyas and Koliyas and annexed their state after a long war
with massive loss of lives on both sides. Details of this war were
exaggerated by later Buddhist accounts, which claimed that
Procession of Suddhodana from Viḍūḍabha exterminated the Shakyas in retaliation for having
Kapilavastu, proceeding to meet his given in marriage to his father the slave girl who became
son the Buddha walking in mid-air Viḍūḍabha's mother. In actuality, Viḍūḍabha's invasion of Shakya
(heads raised towards his path at the might instead have had similar motivations to the conquest of the
bottom of the panel), and to give him Vajjika League by Viḍūḍabha's relative, the Māgadhī king
a Banyan tree (bottom left corner). [8]
Ajātasattu, who, because he was the son of a Vajjika princess, was
Sanchi. therefore interested in the territory of his mother's homeland. The
result of the Kauśalya invasion was that the Shakyas and Koliyas
merely lost political importance after being annexed into
Viḍūḍabha's kingdom. The Shakyas nevertheless soon disappeared as an ethnic group after their
annexation, having become absorbed into the population of Kosala, with only a few displaced families
maintaining the Shakya identity afterwards. The Koliyas likewise disappeared as a polity and as a tribe
soon after their annexation.[3][11]

The massive life losses incurred by Kosala during its conquest of Shakya and Koliya weakened it
significantly enough that it was itself was soon annexed by its eastern neighbour, the kingdom of Magadha,
and its king Viḍūḍabha was defeated and killed by the Māgadhī king Ajātasattu.[3]

Social and political organisation

Republican institutions

The Sakyas were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha (an aristocratic oligarchic republic) similarly to the
Licchavikas.[3][1]
 The Assembly

Map of the eastern Gangetic plain

before Viḍūḍabha's conquest of
Kālāma, Sakya and Koliya

Map of the eastern Gangetic plain after

Ashoka's Mahabodhi Temple and Viḍūḍabha's conquest of Kālāma,
Diamond throne in Bodh Gaya, built Sakya and Koliya
circa 250 BCE. The inscription
between the Chaitya arches reads:
"Bhagavato Sakamunino/ bodho" i.e.
The heads of the Sakya kṣatriya clans of the Gotama gotta formed
"The building round the Bodhi tree of an Assembly, and they held the title of rājās. The position of rājā
the Holy Sakamuni (Shakyamuni)."[9]
was hereditary, and after a rājā's death was passed to his eldest son,
Bharhut frieze (circa 100 BCE). who while he was living held the title of uparājā ("Viceroy").[3][5]

The political system of the Sakyas was identical to that of the

Koliyas, and like the Koliyas and the other gaṇasaṅghas, the Assembly met in a santhāgāra, the main of
which was located at Kapilavatthu, although at least one other Sakya santhāgāra also existed at Cātuma.
The judicial and legislative functions of the Assembly of the Sakyas were not distinctly separated, and it
met to discuss important issues concerning public affairs, such as war, peace, and alliances. The Sakya
Assembly deliberated on important issues, and it had a simple voting system through either raising hands or
the use of wooden chips.[3]

The Council

Similarly to the other gaṇasaṅghas, the Sakya Assembly met rarely and it instead had an inner and smaller
Council which met more often to administer the republic in the name of the Assembly. The members of the
Council, titled amaccās, formed a college which was directly in charge of public affairs of the republic.[3]

The mahārājā (Consul)

The head of the Sakya republic was an elected chief, which was a position of first among equals similar to
Roman consuls and Greek archons, and whose incumbent had the title of mahārājā. The mahārājā was in
charge of administering the republic with the help of the Council.[3][11]

Functioning of the Assembly

When sessions of the Assembly were held, the rājās gathered in the santhāgāra; while four amaccās were
posted in the four corners or sides of the hall so as to clearly and easily hear the speeches made by the
rājās; and the consul rājā took his appointed seat and put forward the matters to be discussed once the
Assembly was ready.[3]

During the session, the members of the Assembly expressed their views, which the four amaccās would
record. The Assembly was then adjourned, after which the recorders compared their notes, and all the
amaccās came back and waited for the recorders' decision.[3]

Class society

The society of the Shakyas and Koliyas was a stratified one within which were present at least the
aristocratic, land-owning, attendant, labourer, and serf classes.[3][11] Landholders held the title of bhojakās,
literally meaning "enjoyers (of the right to own land)," and used in the sense of "headmen."[3][11] The
lower classes of Shakya society consisted of servants, in Pāli called kammakaras (meaning "labourers")
and sevakas (meaning "serfs"), who performed the labour in the farms.[1][11]

Culture

Non-Vedic

The Shakyas lived in what scholars presently call the Greater Magadha cultural area, which was located in
the eastern Gangetic plain to the east of the confluence of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā rivers. Like the other
eastern groups of the Greater Magadha region, the Shakyas were saṃkīrṇa-yonayaḥ ("of mixed origin"),
and therefore did not subscribe to the caturvarṇa social organisation consisting of brāhmaṇas, khattiyas,
vessas, and suddas; non-Indo-Aryan indigenous clans were instead given the status of suddas, that is of
slaves or servants, while the Indo-Aryan clans and the indigenous clans who collaborated with them held
the status of khattiyas. Thus, the populations of Greater Magadha did not subscribe to the supremacy of the
brāhmaṇas of the peoples of Āryāvarta, that is the Aryan homeland, and khattiyas were instead the highest
class in the societies of Greater Magadha.[1]

Vedic literature therefore considered the populations of Greater Magadha as existing outside of the limits of
Āryāvarta, with the Manusmṛiti grouping the Vaidehas, Māgadhīs, Licchavikas, and Mallakas, who were
the neighbours of the Shakyas, as being "non-Aryan" and born from mixed caste marriages, and the
Baudhāyana-Dharmaśāstras requiring visitors to these lands to perform purificatory sacrifices as
expiation.[1]

This negative view of the peoples of the Greater Magadha region by the Vedic peoples extended to the
Shakyas, as recorded in the Ambaṭṭha Sutta, according to which the brāhmaṇas described the Shakyas as
"fierce, rough-spoken, touchy and violent," and accused them of not honouring, respecting, esteeming,
revering or paying homage to the brāhmaṇas owing to their "menial origin."[1]

Language

The Shakyas were an Indo-Aryan people under the linguistic influence of Munda languages, as attested by
many of their villages having non-Indo-Aryan names, and the name of the founder of their clan, which has
been recorded in the Sanskrit form Ikṣvāku and the Pali form Okkāka, being of Munda origin.[10]
Religion

Since they lived in the Greater Magadha cultural area, the Shakyas followed non-Vedic religious customs
which drastically differed from the Brahmanical tradition,[1] and even by the time of the Buddha,
Brahmanism and the brāhmaṇas had not acquired religious or cultural preponderance in the Greater
Magadha area to which Shakya belonged.[14]

It was in this non-Vedic cultural environment that Śramaṇa movements existed, with one of them,
Buddhism, having been founded by the Shakya Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha.[1]

Sun worship

The Shakyas worshipped the Sun-god, whom they considered their ancestor,[15] hence why the Shakya
kṣatriya clan claimed to be of the Ādicca (Āditya in Sanskrit) gotta,[16][17] and of the Sūryavaṃśa ("Solar
dynasty").[5]

Origin myth

The Shakya kṣatriya clan claimed descent from the Sun-god via his descendant, named Okkāka (in Pāli)
and Ikṣvāku (in Sanskrit), and whose eight twin sons and daughters who were married to each other had
founded the capital city of the Shakyas and were the tribe's ancestors. This was an origin myth of the ruling
status of the kṣatriya families of the Shakya clan, who had the right to be represented in the santhāgāra,
were often related to each other, and possessed adjacent areas of land, thus establishing kinship, which itself
helped form rights of landownership, and, therefore, of political authority.[5]

This myth was also a foundation myth of the city which, as the residence of the ruling families of the clan,
the city, which was the centre of political and economic activity, was associated with that clan's janapada
(territory), and was equated with the whole janapada itself.[5]

The myth of the Shakyas' ancestors being four pairs of married twin siblings was a myth which traced the
origins of the ruling Shakya families to a common ancestor, and was also a myth of an early human utopia
where humans were born as couples.[5]

Tree worship

The important role of the Sāl tree in the life of the Buddha according to the Buddhist texts, as well as his
representation as a Bodhi tree and his Enlightenment occurring under one such tree, suggest that the
Shakyas practised tree worship, a custom likely derived from Munda religious customs of worshipping
sacred groves, and the important role in their traditions of the Sāl tree, whose flowering marks the
beginning of their New Year and Flower Feast festivals: the Santal tribe worship the Sāl tree and gather to
make communal decisions under them Sāl trees.[1]

The importance of the tree spirits called yakkhas and yakkhīs in Pali (yakṣas and yakṣīs in Sanskrit) in early
Buddhist texts is an attestation of the worship of these beings done at yakkha cetiyas. The worship of
yakkhas and yakkhīs, which was of pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous origin, was prevalent in the Greater
Magadha region.[1]

Serpent worship
The nāga king Mucalinda, who in Buddhist mythology protected the Buddha during a storm under a
mucalinda tree, was a both snake- and a tree-deity, thus alluding to the practice of serpent worship among
the Shakyas, which originated from among the pre-Indo-Aryan Tibeto-Burman populations of northern
South Asia.[1]

Marriage customs

Another reflection of non-Indo-Aryan cultural practices of the Shakyas was the practice of sibling
marriages among their ruling clans, which was forbidden among Vaidika peoples, and was a practice of
social demarcation and of maintaining power within a smaller sub-group of the Shakya clan, and was
therefore not permitted among the lower classes of the Shakya.[1]

Funerary customs

The cremation rituals of the Shakyas which were performed for the funeral of the Buddha as described by
Buddhist texts involved wrapping his body in 500 layers of cloth, placing it in an iron vat full of oil as a
mark of honour, and then covering it with another iron pot before being cremated. These rites originated
from the pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous populations of the eastern Gangetic plains, as were the practices
such as honouring the Buddha's body with singing, dancing, and music, as well as placing his bones in a
golden urn, the veneration of these remains and their burial in a round stūpa which possessed a central
mast, flags, pennants, and parasols at a public crossroads, which were rituals that were performed by the
pre-Indo-Aryan populations for their greater rulers.[1]

Scythian origin hypothesis

Scholars such as Michael Witzel and Christopher I. Beckwith have equated the Shakyas with central Asian
Iranic nomads who were called Scythians by the Greeks, Sakās by the Achaemenid Persians, and Śāka by
the Indo-Aryans. These scholars have suggested that the people of the Buddha were Saka soldiers who
arrived into South Asia in the army of Darius I when he conquered the Indus Valley, and saw in Scytho-
Saka nomadism the origin of the wandering asceticism of the Buddha.[18][19] The scholar Bryan Levman
however criticised this hypothesis for resting on slim to no evidence, and maintains that the Shakyas were a
population native to the north-east Gangetic plain who were unrelated to the Iranic Sakas.[20]

Legacy
The Buddha was given the
epithet of the "Sage of the
Shakyas," Sakka-muni in
Pali and Śākya-muni in
The words "Bu-dhe" and "Sa-kya-mu-
Bharhut inscription: Bhagavato Sanskrit, by his
[22] nī" (Sage of the "Shakyas") in
Sakamunino Bodho ("The followers.
Brahmi script, on Ashoka's
illumination of the Blessed Rummindei Minor Pillar Edict (circa
Sakamuni"), circa 100 BCE.[21]
The functioning of the
250 BCE).
proceedings of Sakka's
heaven in Buddhist
cosmology are modelled on those of the Shakya santhāgāra.[3]

Descendants
Significant population of Newars of Kathmandu valley in Nepal use the surname Shakya and also claim to
be the descendants of the Shakya clan with titles such as Śākyavamsa (of the Shakya lineage) having been
used in the past.[23]

According to Hmannan Yazawin, first published in 1823, the legendary king Abhiyaza, who founded the
Tagaung Kingdom and the Burmese monarchy belonged to the same Shakya clan of the Buddha.[24] He
migrated to present-day Burma after the annexation of the Shakya kingdom by Kosala. The earlier
Burmese accounts stated that he was a descendant of Pyusawhti, son of a solar spirit and a dragon
princess.[25]

References
1. Levman 2014.
2. https://prepp.in/news/e-492-shramana-religion-in-india-art-and-culture-notes/
3. Sharma 1968, p. 182-206.
4. Bronkhorst 2007, p. 6.
5. Thapar 2013, p. 392-399.
6. Fleet, J. F. (1906). "The Inscription on the Piprawa Vase" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/25210
22). The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 38 (1): 149–180.
doi:10.1017/S0035869X00034079 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0035869X00034079).
JSTOR 2521022 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2521022). S2CID 161625116 (https://api.sema
nticscholar.org/CorpusID:161625116). "we find only a fanciful desire to account for the name
Sakya by identifying it with the word sakya, śakya, in the sense of ‘able, capable, smart.’ But,
looking below the surface, we find in the allusion to sākasaṇḍa, sākavanasaṇḍa, the grove
of teak-trees, the real origin of the other name, Sākiya, Śākiya, Śākya."
7. Douglas Q, Adams; Mallory, J. P. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. UK:
Routledge. p. 208. ISBN 978-1-884-96498-5.
8. Marshall p.64 (https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.459148)
9. Luders, Heinrich (1963). Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Vol.2 Pt.2 Bharhut Inscriptions (htt
ps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.107897/2015.107897.Corpus-Inscriptionum-Indicar
um-Vol2-Pt2-Bharhut-Inscriptions#page/n145). p. 95.
10. Levman 2014: "The founder of the Sakya clan, King Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka) has a Munda
name, suggesting that the Sakyas were at least bilingual (Kuiper 1991, 7; Mayrhofer 1992,
vol. 1, 185). Many of the Sakya village names are believed to be non-IA in origin (Thomas
1960, 23), and the very word for town or city (nagara; cf. the Sakya village Nagakara, the
locus of the Cūḷasuññata Sutta ) is of Dravidian stock (Mayrhofer 1963, vol. 2, 125)."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Sakya clan derive their ancestry from King Ikṣvāku, whose name is of Austro-Asiatic
Munda origin (see above, page 148). While the Sakyans’ rough speech and Munda
ancestors do not prove that they spoke a non-IA language, there is a lot of other evidence
suggesting that they were indeed a separate ethnic (and probably linguistic) group."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okkāka was the legendary progenitor of the Sakyas, and bears a name of Munda ancestry"
11. Sharma 1968, p. 207-217.
12. Walshe, Maurice (1995). The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha
Nikaya (http://lirs.ru/lib/sutra/Long_Discourses_of_the_Buddha(Digha_Nikaya).Walshe.pdf)
(PDF). Wisdom Publications. p. 409. ISBN 0-86171-103-3.
13. Batchelor 2015, Chapter 2, Section 2, 7th paragraph.
14. Bronkhorst, Johannes (2011). Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism. Leiden,
Netherlands; Boston, United States: Brill. p. 1. ISBN 978-9-004-20140-8.
15. Batchelor 2015, p. 32-33.
16. Batchelor 2015, p. 36.
17. Nakamura, Hajime (2000). Gotama Buddha: A Biography Based on the Most Reliable Texts.
Vol. 1. Tokyo, Japan: Kosei Publishing Company. p. 124. ISBN 978-4-333-01893-2.
18. Attwood, Jayarava (2012). "Possible Iranian Origins for the Śākyas and Aspects of
Buddhism" (https://www.academia.edu/25950011). Retrieved 4 June 2022.
19. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2015). Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in
Central Asia. Princeton, New Jersey, United States: Princeton University Press. pp. 1–21.
ISBN 978-0-691-17632-1.
20. Levman 2014: "The evidence for this final wave is however, very slim and there is no
evidence for it in the Vedic texts; for their western origin, Witzel relies on a reference in
Pāṇini (4.2.131, madravṛjyoḥ) to the Vṛjjis in dual relation with the Madras who are from the
northwest, and to the Mallas in the Jaiminīya Brāhamaṇa (§198) as arising from the dust of
Rajasthan. Neither the Sakyas nor any of the other eastern tribes are mentioned, and of
course there is no proof that any of these are Indo-Aryan groups. I view the Sakyas and the
later Śakas as two separate groups, the former being aboriginal."
21. Leoshko, Janice (2017). Sacred Traces: British Explorations of Buddhism in South Asia (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=gS4rDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA64). Routledge. p. 64.
ISBN 9781351550307.
22. Sharma 1968, p. 159-168.
23. Gellner, David (1989). "Buddhist Monks or Kinsmen of the Buddha? Reflections on the Titles
Traditionally Used by Sakyas in the Kathmandu Valley" (https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bit
stream/handle/1810/227309/kailash_15_0102_01.pdf?sequence=2) (PDF). Kailash -
Journal of Himalayan Studies. 15: 5–20.
24. Hla Pe, U (1985). Burma: Literature, Historiography, Scholarship, Language, Life, and
Buddhism. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. p. 57. ISBN 978-9971-98-800-5.
25. Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–
1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-
0-521-80496-7.

Sources
Batchelor, Stephen (2015). After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age. New
Haven, Connecticut, United States: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-21622-6.
Bronkhorst, Johannes (2007). Greater Magadha, Studies in the culture of Early India (https://
dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004157194.i-416). doi:10.1163/ej.9789004157194.i-416 (https://d
oi.org/10.1163%2Fej.9789004157194.i-416). ISBN 978-9-047-41965-5.
Levman, Bryan G. (2014). "Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist
Scriptures" (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276914202). Buddhist Studies
Review. 30 (2): 145–180. doi:10.1558/bsrv.v30i2.145 (https://doi.org/10.1558%2Fbsrv.v30i2.
145). Retrieved 4 June 2022.
Sharma, J. P. (1968). Republics in Ancient India, C. 1500 B.C.-500 B.C. Leiden,
Netherlands: E. J. Brill. ISBN 978-9-004-02015-3.
Thapar, Romila (2013). The Past Before Us. Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States:
Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72651-2.

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