Language The Shakyas were an Indo-Aryan people under the linguistic influence of Munda languages, as attested by many of their villages having non-Indo-Aryan names, and the name of the founder of their clan, which has been recorded in the Sanskrit form and the Pali form , being of Munda origin. Religion Since they lived in the Greater Magadha cultural area, the Shakyas followed non-Vedic religious customs which drastically differed from the Brahmanical tradition, and even by the time of the Buddha, Brahmanism and the s had not acquired religious or cultural preponderance in the Greater Magadha area to which Shakya belonged. It was in this non-Vedic cultural environment that movements existed, with one of them, Buddhism, having been founded by the Shakya Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha. Sun worship The Shakyas worshipped the Sun-god, whom they considered their ancestor, hence why the Shakya clan claimed to be of the ( in Sanskrit) , and of the Sūryavaṃśa ("Solar dynasty"). Origin myth The Shakya clan claimed descent from the Sun-god via his descendant, named (in Pāli) and (in Sanskrit), and whose eight twin sons and daughters who were married to each other had founded the capital city of the Shakyas and were the tribe's ancestors. This was an origin myth of the ruling status of the families of the Shakya clan, who had the right to be represented in the , were often related to each other, and possessed adjacent areas of land, thus establishing kinship, which itself helped form rights of landownership, and, therefore, of political authority. This myth was also a foundation myth of the city which, as the residence of the ruling families of the clan, the city, which was the centre of political and economic activity, was associated with that clan's (territory), and was equated with the whole itself. The myth of the Shakyas' ancestors being four pairs of married twin siblings was a myth which traced the origins of the ruling Shakya families to a common ancestor, and was also a myth of an early human utopia where humans were born as couples. Tree worship The important role of the Sāl tree in the life of the Buddha according to the Buddhist texts, as well as his representation as a Bodhi tree and his Enlightenment occurring under one such tree, suggest that the Shakyas practised tree worship, a custom likely derived from Munda religious customs of