Tribes in Ancient India c53.81

c53.81

The administrative and judicial business of the Śākya clan was carried out in their *santhāgāra* or Council-Hall at Kapilavastu.⁷ A young Brahmin named Ambaṭṭha who went to Kapilavastu on business had the opportunity of visiting the *santhāgāra* of the Śākyas, where he saw the young and the old seated on grand seats.⁸ The ‘*samsthāgāra*’ is spoken of in the *Mahāvastu* and the *Lalitavistara*, and we are told there that 500 Śākyas usually took their seats in the Hall. The *Mahāvastu* describes how thirty-two princes, the sons of a Śākya girl and Rājā Kola of Benares, came to settle in Kapilavastu, and presented themselves before the Śākya council (*Śākya-pariṣad*), where 500 Śākya leaders sat together to transact some important business. A new Council-Hall of the Śākyas was raised at Kapilavastu when the Buddha was dwelling at the Nigrodhārāma in the Mahāvana which was close to it. At their request, the Buddha inaugurated the hall, and a series of ethical discourses lasting the whole of the night were delivered by him, Ānanda and Moggallāna.⁹