page_title: Shakya
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Shakya / History / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Adoration of the Diamond Throne and the Bodhi Tree Bharhut relief. The inscription between the Chaitya arches reads: "Bhagavato Sakamunino/ bodho" ie "The building round the Bodhi tree of the Holy Sakamuni (Shakyamuni)" Inscription B23
context_page_description: The Shakya were a clan of Iron age India, habitating an area in Greater Magadha, situated at present-day Nepal and northern India, near the Himalaya. The Shakyas formed an independent oligarchic republican state known as Śākya Gaṇarājya. Its capital was Kapilavastu, which may have been located either in present-day Tilaurakot, Nepal or present-day Piprahwa, India.
  Gautama Buddha, whose teachings became the foundation of Buddhism, was the best-known Shakya. He was known in his lifetime as "Siddhartha Gautama" and "Shakyamuni". He was the son of Śuddhodana, the elected leader of the Śākya Gaṇarājya.
context_section_description: The Shakyas were by tradition sun worshippers, who called themselves Ādicca nāma gottena ("kinsmen of the sun") and descendants of the sun. As Buddha states in the Sutta-Nipāta, "They are of the sun-lineage (adiccagotta), Sakiyans by birth."  It is uncertain whether, by the time of Siddhartha's birth, Vedic Brahmanism had been adopted to any significant extent by the Shakyans.  Scholar Johannes Bronkhorst argues, "I do not deny that many vedic texts existed already, in oral form, at the time when Buddha was born.  However, the bearers of this tradition, the Brahmins, did not occupy a dominant position in the area in which the Buddha preached his message, and this message was not, therefore, a reaction against brahmanical thought and culture."
  Purportedly, many Shakyans joined people from other regions and became followers of the Buddha during his lifetime, and many young Shakyan men left their homes to become monastics.
caption: Ashoka's Mahabodhi Temple and Diamond throne in Bodh Gaya, built circa 250 BCE. The inscription between the Chaitya arches reads: "Bhagavato Sakamunino/ bodho" ie "The building round the Bodhi tree of the Holy Sakamuni (Shakyamuni)".[45] Bharhut frieze (circa 100 BCE).
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