妙法蓮華經文句 1.154

1.154

At the beginning of the Virtuous Kalpa, when Ratna Tathāgata appeared in the world, Gautama's consciousness first took rebirth. If one investigates this meaning, from the people's sovereign onward they were surnamed Gautama. The four sons of King Ikṣvāku—first, Radiant Face; second, Elephant Eater; third, Road Pointer; fourth, Adornment—were suspected and exiled to the pine (or straight-tree) forest north of the Snow Mountains. The people of the kingdom who joyfully followed them were like a market, and it flourished into a powerful kingdom. The father king sighed and said, "My sons are capable (śākya)." The four sons thereupon took this as their clan name. Furthermore, in that place the śākya trees were very luxuriant, translated here as "straight forest"; since they established the kingdom in the forest, they took the forest as their surname. Foreign words have multiple connotations; śākya means both "straight" and "capable." The lineage that Śuddhodana inherited stems from King Adornment; Adornment was Ulkāmukha (Wutou); Ulkāmukha fathered Ulkāmukharāja; he fathered Nyagrodha; he fathered Śikhi (Shixiuluo), who was Siṃhahanu; Siṃhahanu fathered the three "Rice" kings. Droṇodana had two sons: the elder named Mahānāma, and the younger Aniruddha. Thus he was King Śuddhodana's nephew, King Droṇodana's second son, the World-Honoured One's paternal cousin, Ānanda's cousin, Rāhula's uncle—no ordinary person. Therefore the Duke of Zhou sighed, saying: "I am the son of King Wen, the younger brother of King Wu, and the uncle of King Cheng; in the world I am no lowly person, yet when washing my hair I grasp it three times, and when dining I spit out my food three times [to receive guests]—if one who observes etiquette toward the worthy is still like this, how much more so for others?"