Uśīnara and the Śibi

The legend

The best-known Śibi story appears in both Buddhist and Brahmanical versions. A hawk pursues a dove that takes refuge with King Śibi; the hawk claims its rightful prey; the king offers his own flesh, weight for weight, and when the scales will not balance places his whole body on them. In the Jātaka collection the king is a previous birth of the Buddha and the episode is a lesson in the perfection of giving; in the Mahābhārata it is an example of the duty owed to a suppliant.

The story's persistence across traditions made Śibi a byword for royal generosity, and it is depicted in relief at Buddhist sites including Gandhāra, in ancient India (modern-day Pakistan).

The historical people

Behind the legend is an attested people. Silver and copper coins from Nagari, near Chittorgarh in Rajasthan — the ancient Madhyamikā — carry a Brahmi legend naming the Śibi janapada, and are dated to roughly the second or first century BCE. Coins issued in the name of a people rather than a king are characteristic of the northern and western republics of this period, and the Śibi belong with the Yaudheyas, Mālavas and Ārjunāyanas in that group.

The classical sources record Siboi in the Punjab at the time of Alexander's campaign, which suggests a migration southward from the Chenab country into Rajasthan at some point in the intervening centuries. Uśīnara, named in the Vedic texts as the father or the country of Śibi, is the older term and drops out of use.