Editing The Buddha (section)

====Shakyas====
[[File:Mahajanapadas (c. 500 BCE).png|right|thumb|upright=1.35|Ancient kingdoms and cities of India during the time of the Buddha ({{circa| 500 BCE}})]]

According to the Buddhist tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha was a [[Shakya]], a sub-Himalayan ethnicity and clan of north-eastern region of the Indian subcontinent.{{efn|name="birthplace"}}{{efn|Shakya:
* {{harvnb|Warder|2000|p=45}}: "The Buddha [...] was born in the Sakya Republic, which was the city state of Kapilavastu, a very small state just inside the modern state boundary of Nepal against the Northern Indian frontier.
* {{harvnb|Walshe|1995|p=20}}: "He belonged to the Sakya clan dwelling on the edge of the Himalayas, his actual birthplace being a few kilometres north of the present-day Northern Indian border, in Nepal. His father was, in fact, an elected chief of the clan rather than the king he was later made out to be, though his title was ''raja''—a term which only partly corresponds to our word 'king'. Some of the states of North India at that time were kingdoms and others republics, and the Sakyan republic was subject to the powerful king of neighbouring Kosala, which lay to the south".}} The Shakya community was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE.{{sfnp|Gombrich|1988|p=49}} The community, though describable as a small republic, was probably an [[oligarchy]], with his father as the elected chieftain or oligarch.{{sfnp|Gombrich|1988|p=49}} The Shakyas were widely considered to be non-[[Vedas|Vedic]] (and, hence impure) in [[Historical Vedic religion|Brahminic]] texts; their origins remain speculative and debated.<ref name="Levman2013">{{cite journal |last=Levman |first=Bryan Geoffrey |date=2013 |title=Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures |url=https://journals.equinoxpub.com/BSR/article/view/17899/pdf |journal=Buddhist Studies Review |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=145–180 |issn=1747-9681 |access-date=23 February 2020 |archive-date=1 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101132416/https://journals.equinoxpub.com/BSR/article/view/17899/pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Bronkhorst terms this culture, which grew alongside [[Āryāvarta|Aryavarta]] without being affected by the flourish of Brahminism, as [[Greater Magadha]].<ref>Bronkhorst, J. (2007). "Greater Magadha, Studies in the culture of Early India", p. 6. Leiden, Boston, MA: Brill. {{doi|10.1163/ej.9789004157194.i-416}}</ref>

The Buddha's tribe of origin, the Shakyas, seems to have had non-Vedic religious practices which persist in Buddhism, such as the veneration of trees and sacred groves, and the worship of tree spirits ([[yaksha]]s) and serpent beings ([[nāga]]s). They also seem to have built burial mounds called stupas.<ref name=Levman2013 /> Tree veneration remains important in Buddhism today, particularly in the practice of venerating Bodhi trees. Likewise, yakshas and nāgas have remained important figures in Buddhist religious practices and mythology.<ref name=Levman2013 />