[Buddha-l] Oak and the Tribe of the Buddha

[Richard Nance]

> Was the Shakya tribe/clan really named after oak trees?

If so, it's the first I've heard of it. Pali scholars might want to
weigh in, but it seems to me that Logan has landed in a muddle by
assuming that s"aakya is derived from s"aaka, and then assuming that
s"aaka is a terms that refers to oak.

There's no evidence that I know of for such a use. S"aaka is a word
that can be used to refer to vegetables, fruits, greens, and teak
(according to Apte, it's also used to refer to the S"iri.sa tree--a
kind of acacia). The term s"aaka can also be used as an alternative to
s"aka, the word from which the s"aakya in S"aakyamuni is held to
derive. But the fact that the same word can be used to denote two
different things -- here a plant, there a group of people -- doesn't
entail that one of these things is named after the other. And this is
a good thing, given that the word s"aka is used in the Atharvaveda to
refer to dung.

Best wishes,

R. Nance