The Four Great Kings

Four Great Kings are devas in the Indian pantheon where they occupy the lowest of the devalokas (god realms). They feature in some of the earliest Buddhist scriptures, representing a strand of Indian religous thought which was being adopted and adapted by Buddhists, probably in the first few centuries after the death of the Buddha. Each one presides over one of the four directions of space, and is associated with a particular type of non-human being.

A very early set of four directional gods appears in the Yajur Veda with Agni (E), Yama (S), Savitṛ (W), and Varuna (N). The gods of the directions were shuffled around in Brāhmaṇa texts. See also my essay on an early maṇḍalas, which discusses a maṇḍala in the Bṛhadāraṇuaka Upaniṣad. Scholars, however, place there origins of the four Lokapālas in the pre-Ariyan indigenous population of India. I favour a hybrid appraoch. Since some of the figures clearly do relate to Vedic gods in some ways (eg Vaiśravana and Kubera; Virūpakṣa and Varuṇa) I think that the Lokapālas, especially as we meet them in Buddhism, combine the chthonic local deities in the form of their follows (ie the yakṣas), but with Vedic inspired kings overlaid onto them. This is pure supposition however, and would need a lot more research to establish as fact.

The Lokapālas, or Mahārajas, feature widely in the Pāli texts (where they are known as the Cātummahārājikā), often visiting the Buddha at crucial times, or to hear the Dharma. In Pāli the names are: Dhataraṭṭha, Virūḷhaka, Virūpakkha, Vessavana. A summary of the Great Kings in the Pāli texts is available in the Dictionary of Pāli Names.

One of the key texts featuring the Four Kings is the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta (DN 32). This is one of the traditional paritta texts which are chanted for protection from misfortune, and the Āṭānṭiya is particularly concerned with protection from harmful 'spirits' ie yakṣas etc. Yakṣas etc were minor gods with their own cults and shrines. Several yakṣa (Pāli yakkha) shrines are mentioned in the Pāli texts. Initially they were not much distinguished from nāgas and were nature spirits associated with water or trees. In one text there is a story of an anger eating yakkha (SN 11.22).

One of the best known figures of the Vajrayāna, Vajrapaṇi, first appears in the Ambaṭṭha Sutta (DN 3) as the yakkha Vajirapani, the Pāli form of the name. He threatenes to split the head of a Brahmin, who is lying to the Buddha about his ancestry, into seven pieces. Head splitting is, strangely, a regular topic in the canon - in the Āṭānāṭiya non-humans will split the head of any malicious spirit who attacks one of the Buddha's disciples, as long as they recite the sutta (this is very reminiscent of later Mahayāna refrains!). Vajrapaṇi's progress to the pinnacle of the Vajrayana pantheon is traced in David Snellgrove's Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

The Āṭānāṭiya continues to be an important text into the Mahāyāna, and continues to develop as a text for several centuries at least. Peter Skilling has traced its development in his study of the so-called Rakṣa [protection] texts. Later it is considered to be a kriya (or action) class tantra.

The Four Great Kings make an appearance in the Golden Light Sutra where they promise to protect anyone who recites the sutra. They are the rulers of the chthonic forces of nature. In this context they are known as the Lokapālas: "They belong to the heavens, but they are in touch with the earth, and they are therefore able to keep the powerful energies of the earth under control, and prevent them from having a disruptive effect on the human world." (Sangharakshita 1995: 134)

In maṇḍalas the Kings guard the four gates in the four directions. Vessentara describes these protector figures as "beneficient forces at the summit of the mundane world who, whilst not themselves Enlightened, are receptive to the influence of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas". (308)

Maitiu O'Ceileachair has pointed out these type of mantras: beginning with oṃ, followed by the name of the deity in the dative case, and ending in svāhā, are similar in form to some Vedic Mantras from the Yajur Veda. What is suggested by this is that the mantra accompanied a libation (a liquid offering, probably ghee) poured onto the sacrificial fire and dedicated to the named deity. The form was retained even when the sacrifices were internalised, that carried out imaginatively, and the mantras on their own came to suffice for the ritual. Later again they were adopted by Buddhists wishing to invoke Buddhas and Bodhiattvas, and, as in this case, gods.

References

• DN = Dīgha Nikāya
• SN = Saṃyutta Nikāya