Tribes in Ancient India c60.29

c60.29

We find a variant of the story in the *Mahāvastu*,⁴ which tells us that the daughter of a certain Śākya noble was attacked with leprosy. The physicians failed to cure her; sores appeared all over her body, and the people began to hate her. She was taken by her brothers in a palanquin to a spot close to the Himālayas. They dug out a subterranean room, and she was left there with plenty of food and water. They blocked up the entrance to the cave with planks, and put a large heap of dust in front of it, and then returned to Kapilavastu. After living in the stuffy room for some time, she resumed her former beauty, for the heat had cured her of leprosy. Now, not far from the cave lived a royal sage named Kola.⁵ While wandering about in the vicinity of his hermitage, Kola came to the cave where the Śākya girl lived, and saw a tiger scratching up the heap of dust with its feet. His curiosity was aroused; the sage drove away the tiger, removed the planks, and opened the door of the cave, revealing the Śākya girl. Seeing her exquisite beauty, the sage became very much attached to her, and took her along to his hermitage. Sixteen pairs of twin sons were born to the couple. When these sons were grown up, they were sent to Kapilavastu by their mother, who told them that they would there be provided for by their uncles, who were Śākya nobles. She trained them in the manners of the Śākyas, and they were then allowed to set out. They saluted their parents and went to Kapilavastu. On arriving, the sons of the sage, surrounded by a vast crowd, went to the assembly hall of the Śākyas, where five hundred Śākyas were assembled and transacting business. They approached the assembly in the way their mother had taught them. The Śākya assembly was astounded to see the Śākya manners in them, and asked them whence they came. They answered as they had been instructed, ‘We are sons of Kola, the royal sage, who has his hermitage somewhere at the foot of the Himālayas. Our mother is the daughter of a certain Śākya.’ Hearing this, the Śākyas were pleased to learn that the youths were born of the royal sage, and not of some one of inferior rank. Recognising them as Śākyas, they said, ‘Let them be given Śākya girls and appointments.’ They were given Śākya brides, cultivable lands, and villages. As the princes were sons of the sage Kola, they were known as Koliyas.