Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c13.s2.27

c13.s2.27

There is not the least allusion to any individual royal authority in this circumstantial narrative, and moreover the chiefs of the Sakyas are all called kings.² "Why are ye come here, mighty kings," asked the Buddha. Elsewhere we have the expression "the kings said . . ." ³ In the *Samudda-Vāṇija Jātaka*, Devadatta laments the fact that he has been rejected by all "kings of the Sakyas."⁴ Similarly, we learn from the *Bhaddasāla Jātaka* how King Pasenadi sent his envoy asking, "Please give me one of your daughters in marriage, for I wish to become connected with your family".⁵ On receipt of this message it was the Sakyas who gathered and deliberated in their *santhāgāra*. According to the time-honoured custom, ambassadors are dispatched by one sovereign to another, if there be any, and the omission of the king in this respect strengthens the assumption that the Sakyas had no king in the sense of a sole hereditary monarch.⁶ It is true that Vāsabhakhattiyā, born of a slave woman and Mahānāma, is referred to by the Buddha as "a king's daughter."⁷ But on the preceeding page of the same *Jātaka* Mahānāma is referred to simply as "Mahānāma the Sakya".⁸ Vāsabhakhattiyā also tells her son Viḍūḍabha, "My boy, your grandsires are the Sakyan kings," and the young Sakyans are referred to as "princes".⁹