Shakya
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The Shakya (or Sakya) were a clan of Hindu kshatriyas. The Shakyas lived near the foothills of the Himalayas.
Perhaps the most famous Shakya was Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha. Chandragupta Maurya also claimed to be a descendent of Shakyas.
The Shakyas are mentionned in the accounts of the birth of the Buddha (Mahāvastu, c. end of 2nd century BCE) as the "solar race", probably in association with a sun worship:
- "There lived once upon a time a king of the Shakyas, a scion of the solar race, whose name was Suddhodana. He was pure in conduct, and beloved of the Shakyas like the autumn moon. He had a wife, splendid, beautiful, and steadfast, who was called the Great Maya, from her resemblance to Maya the Goddess."
The Shakyas formed more or less independant tribes or kingdoms in the foothills of the Himalaya. The Greeks seem to have connected them to the Scythians, or Sakas.
External links:
- Shakya coins (http://home.comcast.net/~pankajtandon/galleries-shakya.html)
- Buddhism and sun worship (http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/tianshu.html)