For the line Sakya of Buddhism Tibetan, consult Sakyapa

General presentation

The Śākyas , Shakyas or Sakyas , still called Çâkyas, Sokyās, Sakkas or Sākiyās, “able” in Sanskrit, was a tribe established in the north of the Indian peninsula to the Life and Ve front centuries J.C. They belonged to the caste of the Kshatriya S dedicated to the war and the administration.

They are especially known as the clan from which the Bouddha is resulting, also named “Wise of Shakyas” (Shakyamuni). The king Asoka and the kings of Ceylon are introduced in the Buddhist literature like their descendants.

Their territory extended to north from Gorakhpur on the buttresses from the the Himalayas, on current the Uttar Pradesh Eastern and Teraï Nepalese, reaching Magadha in the east. Their kings were undoubtedly elected and they had a hall of assembly (will santhagara) with Kapilavastu, their city (or village) principal, like in Catuma. Certain sources mention that the Buddha would have been invited to inaugurate by sermons the new assembly of Kapilavastu. The other known Shakya cities are Khomadussa, Sāmagāma, Devadaha, Sīlavatī, Nagaraka, Medatalumpa, Sakkhara and Ulumpa. The Agganna Sutta makes them the vassal ones of king Pasenadi de Kosala. Nevertheless, the legend of their dispersion evoked low does not show them very respectful towards their suzerain.

Shakyas and Koliyas

Shakya maintained the relations of intermarriage and competition and the clan Koliyas, with which they had a common origin besides. Mayadevi and Mahaprajapati, mother and mother-in-law of Gautama, most probably came from a Koliya family. According to certain sources, when Gautama returned in its country of origin, it was divided between Kapilavastu, town of his father, and Koliyanagara, capital of Koliyas. The latter obtained to keep with its death a eighth of its relics. However, the things did not go always well between the two clans, as the charges testify some to “incestueuse promiscuity, like the dogs and the jackals” carried with regard to Shakyas by Koliyas which sometimes saw themselves refusing alliances with the profit of marriages endogames. Shakyas, for their part, treated sometimes their allies of “live animals in the branches of the trees” (the name of the clan is that of a tree). The intervention of the Buddha to prevent a war between the two tribes about the use of water of the Rohini river which separated their territories is a famous episode.

Origin of Shakyas and Koliyas

Shakyas were regarded as descendants of legendary king Okkaka (Ikshvaku), and according to certain sources them gotta (family name) principal was Adicca, one of the names of the god sun Surya. Enthusiast on a new wife, Okkara would have decided to leave the kingdom to his/her Jantukumara son. The nine children of the first wife exiled themselves in Himavā (the Himalayas), where they founded Kapilavastu. They decided to consider their elder, Piya, like their mother, and the other brothers and sisters married each other the ones the others. Having had wind of the events, king Okkara would have complimented them on their smartness, from where the name of the clan, Shakya (able).

(Line of Shakyas from Okkara Jayasena, great-grandfather of the Buddha: Okkāka, Okkāmukha, Nipuna, Candimā, Candamukha, Sivisañjaya, Vessantara, Jāli, Sīhavāhana, Sīhassara, Jayasena)

Piya, the elder one of Shakyas, was contaminated by the Lèpre and had to be exiled in the forest. It met king Rama there Bénarès which, reached same evil formerly, had left the city to the hands of his/her son and lived as a hermit; he since had cured. He looked after in his turn Piya and married it. The couple and its many sons (thirty-two according to a version) founded a city in the forest, with the assistance of new king de Bénarès. They had for that to cut down colas (tree), from where the name of their city (Kolanagara) and their clan, Koliya. Time of the Buddha, their principal cities were Rámagáma and Devadaha.

Of the Buddha with Asoka

Siddharta Gautama is attached to the descendants of Okkara by Sihahanu and Yasodhara, respectively wire and girl of Jayasena. A union crossed with two children of Devadahasakka, chief Koliya de Devadaha, took place: his/her Anjana son married Yashodhara and his/her Kaccana daughter married Sihahanu.

Anjana and Yashodhara would be the parents of Mayadevi and Mahaprajapati, as well as their brothers Dandapani and Suppabuddha; one of the latter would be the father of Yashodhara (or Baddhakaccana), woman of the Buddha.

Sīhahanu and Kaccana had two girls and five wire, with the number of which Shuddhodana, father of the Buddha.

The dispersion of Shakyas would have begun from living from Gautama. King Pasedani de Kosala, suzerain of Shakyas, had asked to one for their girls in marriage. Nevertheless, Shakyas did not consider it worthy of a “blue blood” of their clan and proposed Vasabhakhattiya to him, born of Nagamunda, basic concubine position. A son was born, Vidudabha, before Pasedani does not realize that he had been deceived. Furious, it reduced the mother and the son to a plebeian position, then restores them in their situation after the Buddha itself had pled their cause. Vidudabha had kept a tooth against Shakyas. Become king, he undertook to be avenged by massacring men, women and children. The Buddhist sources mention that this Shakyamuni time could nothing make, and explain the mishaps of the clan by the remuneration of an attempt at poisoning of the water of the river at the time of a former existence.

At the time of the war, some would be escaped towards the Himalayas to found there Moriyanagara “cry of the peacocks”, which would be according to the Buddhist tradition the cradle of the dynasty Moriya (Maurya) from which the emperor Asoka is resulting who will propel Buddhism on the front of the scene. Pandu, wire of Amitodana, would have crossed the Gange and found a city on other side. His/her Bhaddakaccānā daughter will marry Panduvāsudeva, king of Ceylon. Six of his/her brothers would have followed it to found in the island Rāma, Uruvela, Anurādha Vijita, Dīghāyu and Rohana.

See too

• Gautama Buddha
• Family of the Buddha
• History of Buddhism
• Ashoka

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