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Shakya ( Pāḷi: ; sa, शाक्य, translit=Śākya) was an ancient eastern
sub-Himalayan The Sub-Himalayan Range (also known as the Cis-Himalaya) is the southernmost mountains in the Himalayan range, located on the Indian subcontinent. Their average height varies between 600 and 1200 meters, and are not so high in altitude as compa ...
ethnicity and
clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, mea ...
of north-eastern region of the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...
, whose existence is attested during the
Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...
. The Shakyas were organised into a (an aristocratic
oligarchic Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
republic A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...
), also known as the Shakya Republic. The Shakyas were on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Gangetic plain in the
Greater Magadha Greater Magadha is a concept in studies of the early history of India. It is used to refer to the political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains (Johannes Bronkhorst defines the region to comprise modern day Bihar and e ...
cultural region.


Location

The Shakyas lived along the foothills of the Himālaya mountains, with their neighbours to the west and south being the kingdom of
Kosala The Kingdom of Kosala (Sanskrit: ) was an ancient Indian kingdom with a rich culture, corresponding to the area within the region of Awadh in present-day Uttar Pradesh to Western Odisha. It emerged as a small state during the late Vedic peri ...
, 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. The capital of the Shakyas was the city of Kapilavastu.


Etymology

The name of the Shakyas is attested primarily in the Pāli forms and , and the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
form . The Shakyas' name was derived from the Sanskrit root () ( (), more rarely () or ()) meaning "to be able," "worthy," "possible," or "practicable." The name of the Shakyas was also derived from the name of the or tree, which Bryan Levman has identified with either the
teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...
or sāla tree, which is ultimately related to word (), meaning ‘branch,’ and was connected to the Shakyas' practice of worshipping the or tree.


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 Greater Magadha is a concept in studies of the early history of India. It is used to refer to the political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains (Johannes Bronkhorst defines the region to comprise modern day Bihar and e ...
cultural region. The Shakyas were of ‘mixed origin’ () of Indo-Aryan and Munda descent, with the former group forming a minority.: "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)."
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"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."
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"Okkāka was the legendary progenitor of the Sakyas, and bears a name of Munda ancestry"
The Shakyas were closely related to their eastern neighbours, the Koliya tribe, with whom they intermarried.


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 The Vajjika ( Pāli: ) or Vrijika ( Sanskrit: ) League, Confederacy, or Sangha, also called simply Vajji ( Pāli: ) or Vriji ( Sanskrit: ), was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribal league which existed during the later Iron Age period in north-east ...
from the Kosala kingdom. By that time, the Shakya republic had become a vassal state of the larger Kingdom of Kosala. 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 ''Maya'' (; Devanagari: , IAST: ), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not ...
, 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 Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
. 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. 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.


Conquest by Kosala

Shortly after the Buddha's death, the Kauśalya king
Viḍūḍabha Viḍūḍabha ( pi, विडूडभ​ ; sa, विरूढक​ ) was a king of Kosala during the lifetime of the Buddha. Life Early life He was the son of Prasenajit and , the daughter of a Shakyan chief named by a slave girl .Kos ...
, 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 Viḍūḍabha exterminated the Shakyas in retaliation for having given in marriage to his father the slave girl who became Viḍūḍabha's mother. In actuality, Viḍūḍabha's invasion of Shakya might instead have had similar motivations to the conquest of the
Vajjika League The Vajjika ( Pāli: ) or Vrijika ( Sanskrit: ) League, Confederacy, or Sangha, also called simply Vajji ( Pāli: ) or Vriji ( Sanskrit: ), was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribal league which existed during the later Iron Age period in north-east ...
by Viḍūḍabha's relative, the Māgadhī king Ajātasattu, who, because he was the son of a Vajjika princess, was 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. 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.


Social and political organisation


Republican institutions

The Sakyas were organised into a (an aristocratic
oligarchic Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
republic A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...
) similarly to the Licchavikas.


The Assembly

The heads of the Sakya clans of the formed an Assembly, and they held the title of s. The position of was hereditary, and after a 's death was passed to his eldest son, who while he was living held the title of ("Viceroy"). The political system of the Sakyas was identical to that of the Koliyas, and like the Koliyas and the other s, 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.


The Council

Similarly to the other s, 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 s, formed a college which was directly in charge of public affairs of the republic.


The (Consul)

The head of the Sakya republic was an elected chief, which was a position of first among equals similar to
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
consuls A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...
and Greek
archon ''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...
s, and whose incumbent had the title of . The was in charge of administering the republic with the help of the Council.


=Functioning of the Assembly

= When sessions of the Assembly were held, the s gathered in the santhāgāra; while four s were posted in the four corners or sides of the hall so as to clearly and easily hear the speeches made by the s; and the consul took his appointed seat and put forward the matters to be discussed once the Assembly was ready. During the session, the members of the Assembly expressed their views, which the four s would record. The Assembly was then adjourned, after which the recorders compared their notes, and all the s came back and waited for the recorders' decision.


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. Landholders held the title of s, literally meaning "enjoyers (of the right to own land)," and used in the sense of "headmen." The lower classes of Shakya society consisted of servants, in Pāli called s (meaning "labourers") and s (meaning "serfs"), who performed the labour in the farms.


Culture


Non-Vedic

The Shakyas lived in what scholars presently call the
Greater Magadha Greater Magadha is a concept in studies of the early history of India. It is used to refer to the political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains (Johannes Bronkhorst defines the region to comprise modern day Bihar and e ...
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 ("of mixed origin"), and therefore did not subscribe to the social organisation consisting of s, s, s, and s; non-Indo-Aryan indigenous clans were instead given the status of s, that is of slaves or servants, while the Indo-Aryan clans and the indigenous clans who collaborated with them held the status of s. Thus, the populations of Greater Magadha did not subscribe to the supremacy of the s of the peoples of , that is the Aryan homeland, and s were instead the highest class in the societies of Greater Magadha. Vedic literature therefore considered the populations of Greater Magadha as existing outside of the limits of , with the 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 s requiring visitors to these lands to perform purificatory sacrifices as expiation. This negative view of the peoples of the Greater Magadha region by the Vedic peoples extended to the Shakyas, as recorded in the , according to which the s described the Shakyas as "fierce, rough-spoken, touchy and violent," and accused them of not honouring, respecting, esteeming, revering or paying homage to the s owing to their "menial origin."


Language

The Shakyas were an Indo-Aryan people under the linguistic influence of
Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family ...
, 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 and the Pali form , being of Munda origin.


Religion

Since they lived in the
Greater Magadha Greater Magadha is a concept in studies of the early history of India. It is used to refer to the political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains (Johannes Bronkhorst defines the region to comprise modern day Bihar and e ...
cultural area, the Shakyas followed non-Vedic religious customs which drastically differed from the Brahmanical tradition, and even by the time of the Buddha, Brahmanism and the s had not acquired religious or cultural preponderance in the Greater Magadha area to which Shakya belonged. It was in this non-Vedic cultural environment that movements existed, with one of them,
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
, having been founded by the Shakya Siddhartha Gautama, the historical
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
.


=Sun worship

= The Shakyas worshipped the
Sun-god A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The ...
, whom they considered their ancestor, hence why the Shakya clan claimed to be of the ( in Sanskrit) , and of the Sūryavaṃśa ("Solar dynasty").


=Origin myth

= The Shakya clan claimed descent from the Sun-god via his descendant, named (in Pāli) and (in
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
), 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 families of the Shakya clan, who had the right to be represented in the , 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. 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 (territory), and was equated with the whole itself. 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.


=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 The Santal or Santhal are an Austroasiatic speaking Munda ethnic group in South Asia. Santals are the largest tribe in the Jharkhand and West Bengal state of India in terms of population and are also found in the states of Odisha, Bihar an ...
tribe worship the Sāl tree and gather to make communal decisions under them Sāl trees. The importance of the tree spirits called s and s in Pali (s and s in Sanskrit) in early Buddhist texts is an attestation of the worship of these beings done at s. The worship of s and s, which was of pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous origin, was prevalent in the Greater Magadha region.


=Serpent worship

= The 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.


=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 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.


=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 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.


Scythian origin hypothesis

Scholars such as
Michael Witzel Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indologist. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–80). Witz ...
and Christopher I. Beckwith have equated the Shakyas with central Asian Iranic nomads who were called
Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Cent ...
by the Greeks, s by the Achaemenid Persians, and 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 Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...
when he conquered the Indus Valley, and saw in Scytho-Saka nomadism the origin of the wandering asceticism of the Buddha. 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.


Legacy

The Buddha was given the epithet of the "Sage of the Shakyas," in Pali and in Sanskrit, by his followers. The functioning of the proceedings of Sakka's
heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
in
Buddhist cosmology Buddhist cosmology describes the planes and realms in which beings can be reborn. The spatial cosmology consists of a vertical cosmology, the various planes of beings, into which beings are reborn due to their merits and development; and a hori ...
are modelled on those of the Shakya santhāgāra.


Descendants

Tharu people of Tarai region of India and Nepal claim descent from Sakya. Significant population of
Newars Newar (; new, नेवार, endonym: Newa; new, नेवा, Pracalit script:) or Nepami, are the historical inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley and its surrounding areas in Nepal and the creators of its historic heritage and civilisat ...
of
Kathmandu valley The Kathmandu Valley ( ne, काठमाडौं उपत्यका; also known as the Nepal Valley or Nepa Valley ( ne, नेपाः उपत्यका, Nepal Bhasa: 𑐣𑐾𑐥𑐵𑑅 𑐐𑐵𑑅, नेपाः गाः)), ...
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. According to ''
Hmannan Yazawin ''Hmannan Maha Yazawindawgyi'' ( my, မှန်နန်း မဟာ ရာဇဝင်တော်ကြီး, ; commonly, ''Hmannan Yazawin''; known in English as the '' Glass Palace Chronicle'') is the first official chronicle of Konbaun ...
'', first published in 1823, the legendary king
Abhiyaza Abhiyaza ( my, အဘိရာဇာ ; d. 825 BCE) was the legendary founder of the Kingdom of Tagaung, and that of Burmese monarchy, according to the 19th century chronicle ''Hmannan Yazawin''. He reportedly belonged to the same Sakya clan of ...
, who founded the
Tagaung Kingdom Tagaung Kingdom ( my, တကောင်း နေပြည်တော်, ) was a Pyu city-state that existed in the first millennium CE. In 1832, the hitherto semi-legendary state was officially proclaimed the first kingdom of Burmese mon ...
and the Burmese monarchy belonged to the same Shakya clan of the Buddha. 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 Pyusawhti ( my, ပျူစောထီး , ; also Pyuminhti, ) was a legendary king of Pagan Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar), who according to the Burmese chronicles supposedly reigned from 167 to 242 CE. The chronicles down to the 18th century h ...
, son of a solar spirit and a dragon princess.


References


Sources

* * * * * {{refend Family of Gautama Buddha Empires and kingdoms of Nepal Ancient peoples of Nepal Gaṇa saṅghas