Oak and the Tribe of the Buddha

[Bindu Bhat]

I thought Shakya is a Kshatriya tribe in the foothills of the Himalayas. I 
don't know anything about Oak tree association here.
Bindu

--On 28 ??????? 2005 08:49 -0600 jkirk <jkirk at SPRO.NET> wrote:

> Hello Indologers,
>
> This is a query that came to the Buddha-L list, and as I too am wondering
> about this translation of shakya--any comment, anyone?
>
> Thanks,
> Joanna Kirkpatrick
> ==================================
>
>
>
>> Dear list members,
>>
>> Here's a quotation from the new book _Oak:  The Frame
>> of Civilization_, by William Bryant Logan, Norton, 2005,
>> page 24:
>>
>> 'The name of the historic Buddha, Shakyamuni, means
>> "the sage of the oak tree people".'
>>
>> This surprised me, and I haven't been able to find any
>> corroboration on the internet or in my library.  I'm not
>> an expert on Pali or Sanskrit, so I can't judge the
>> accuracy of this statement.  The book is not a scholarly
>> volume, so there aren't footnotes  -- otherwise I'd just
>> look at his references and I might have my answer already.
>>
>> Was the Shakya tribe/clan really named after oak trees?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Greg Bungo