Tribes in Ancient India c53.57

c53.57

How proud and aristocratic the Śākyas were when asked to give away their daughters in marriage to any one outside their clan will appear from the following story of King Pasenadi of Kośala, who desired to have a Śākya girl as his consort. The king considered that if he married a Śākya girl, the Brethren (i.e. Bhikkhus) would be his friends, as he would then be related to them by marriage. So, rising from his seat, he returned to the palace, and sent a message to Kapilavatthu to this effect: ‘Please give me one of your daughters in marriage, for I wish to become connected with your family’. On receipt of this message the Śākyas gathered together and deliberated: ‘We live in a place subject to the authority of the king of Kośala; if we refuse to give him one of our daughters, he will be very angry; and if we give her, the custom of our clan will be broken. What are we to do?’ Then Mahānāma said to them, ‘I have a daughter named Vāsabhakhattiyā. Her mother is a slave woman named Nāgamuṇḍā; the girl is sixteen years old, of great beauty and auspicious prospects, and noble on her father’s side. Let us send her, as a girl nobly born.’ The Śākyas agreed, and, sending for the king’s messengers, said that they were willing to give a daughter of the clan, and that they might take her with them at once. But the messengers reflected: ‘These Śākyas are desperately proud in matters of birth. Suppose they should send a girl who is not one of them, and say that she is so. We will take none but one who eats along with them.’ However, by a ruse, Mahānāma avoided eating more than one mouthful with his daughter, and Pasenadi’s messengers did not discover the secret.