Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c13.s2.11

c13.s2.11

Weak though his arguments may be, Professor D. R. Bhandarkar has advanced different claims. He asserts that "no office holder was appointed by the Śākyas from time to time as Rhys Davids suggested. The Pāli canon speaks only once of a Śākya king Bhaddiya, *Bhaddiyo Sakyarājā Sakyānaṁ rajjaṁ kārenti*. He was most probably hereditary and not a president, *mukhya* or *grāmaṇī*."⁵ He further adds that "the preambles of some *Jātakas* [nos. 466 and 536] make us infer that the Śākyas were a *gaṇa* and not a *kula*, but the Canonical texts are earlier and more authentic, which makes the Śākya a kingly tribe and not a *gaṇa*."⁶ Rhys Davids has shown at least two cases in the Pāli canon where two different Sakyans are called *rājās*. The one referred to by Bhandarkar had already been noticed by Rhys Davids as early as 1903, at least 15 years before Bhandarkar wrote, and the former scholar was fully aware of Bhaddiya being called a *rājā*.⁷ Moreover, Rhys Davids also added in the same sentence, "and in another passage, Suddhodana, the Buddha's father [who is elsewhere spoken of as a simple citizen, Suddhodana the Sākiyan], is called the *rājā*." We admit that Rhys Davids did not locate the evidence for Suddhodana *rājā* in the texts, but the fact remains that he did mention more than one Sakya being called a *rājā*. Long before Rhys Davids, Oldenberg had shown that the Sakyan king was no more than a chief, and that the idea that the Buddha's father, Suddhodana, enjoyed this royal dignity was quite foreign to the oldest forms in which the traditions regarding the family are presented to us. "Rather we have nothing (more or less)