Shakya

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shakya (Sanskrit:Śākya and Pāli:Sākiya) is the name (derived from Sanskrit śakya, capable, able[citation needed]) of an ancient janapada (realm) and its Indo-Aryan-speaking[1] ruling clan. In Buddhist texts, the Śākyas are mentioned as a Kshatriya clan[2]. The Śākyas formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the Himālayas. The Śākya capital was Kapilavastu (Pāli: Kapilavatthu).

The most famous Śākya was Shakyamuni Buddha (Gautama Buddha), a member of the ruling Gautama (Pāli: Gotama) clan of Lumbini, who is also known as Śākyamuni (Pāli: Śakamuṇi, "sage of the Śaka nation").

Contents

[edit] The accounts of Buddhist texts

The Śākyas are mentioned in the accounts of the birth of the Buddha (Mahāvastu, c. end of the 2nd century BCE) as a part of the Ādichchas (solar race) and as descendants of the legendary king Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka):

"There lived once upon a time a king of the Śākya, a scion of the solar race, whose name was Śuddhodana. He was pure in conduct, and beloved of the Śākya 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)

[edit] 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[3][4].

[edit] The Shakyas and the Scythians

The Greeks, and many writers and scholars since, have connected them to the Scythians[citation needed], or Śaka as they were known in India from whom descended the Sogdiana[citation needed]. However, the Śaka were not known in India before the 2nd century BCE, centuries after the last attested existence of the Śākyas. "Śākya" may nonetheless be possibly cognate with "Scythian" as a result of their shared Indo-Iranian heritage.[citation needed]

J.P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair have elaborated on the similarity between stupas and the tumulus funerary mounds of the Scythian steps, and the identity of the Śākyas with the Saka Scythians:

"The stupa was one of the most characteristic architectural remains of the Buddhist world; they are not found in Hinduism at all. In function we may view them as a specialized type of tumulus: they were circular in shape with a domed top, and they were built to cover the relics of the Buddha, his early followers, or some other essential symbol of the Buddhist religion. It might be recalled that the Buddha was Śākyamuni ("Sage of the Śākyas" i.e. the Sakas) and, within an Indic context, Buddhism was a kind of "Iranian heresy"".[5]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Kosambi D.D. (1988). The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, ISBN 0 7069 4200 0, p.108
  2. ^ Thapar, R.(1978). Ancient Indian Social History, New Delhi: Orient Longman, ISBN 81 250 0808 X, p.117
  3. ^ Raychaudhuri H. (1972). Political History of Ancient India, Calcutta: University of Calcutta, pp.177-8
  4. ^ Kosambi D.D. (1988). The Culture and Civilsation of Ancient India in Historical Outline, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, ISBN 0 7069 4200 0, pp.128-9
  5. ^ Mallory J.P. and Victor H. Mair, The Tarim Mummies, Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500051011, p.171

[edit] External links