The Buddhist Cosmos

by Punnadhammo Mahathero

  Dhataraṭṭha of the East, lord of the gandhabbas,

  Virūḷhaka of the South, lord of the kumbhaṇdas,

  Virūpakkha of the West, lord of the nāgas,

  Vessavaṇa of the North (also called Kuvera), lord of the yakkhas.512

  The division of the material world into four is a powerful archetype. In Buddhism we have the four elements, the four continents and the Four Great Kings. The idea of four elements is found also in European thought, via the Greeks, together with the old medical idea of the four humours. There is of course what may be the primary form of the archetype, the four cardinal directions. The division into four also shows itself in ancient India culture in the four castes and the four-fold army. These latter are the infantry, cavalry, charioteers and elephants and are the original basis of the game of chess with its pawns, knights, bishops and rooks.513 It is also very possible that the four kings of our modern playing cards were originally the Four Great Kings of Mt Sineru.514

  The Four Great King’s primary role is that of guardians of the world, a role which they perform in several different ways. They, together with their retinues, serve as the first line of defence against the asuras who are forever attempting to storm Tāvatiṃsa. They stand watch while the gods of the Thirty-Three are in assembly, (DN 18) and they take a special interest in protecting the Dhamma and the Buddha. The Four Kings are said to have watched over the Bodhisatta while he was still in his mother’s womb, to have been present at his birth and to have presented the baby to his mother, saying “Rejoice!” (DN 14). They stood guard over the oven while the maiden Sujātā prepared the Bodhisatta’s meal of milk-rice (and Sakka stoked the fire!).515 When the Buddha received his first meal offering after his awakening from two travelling merchants, it was the Four Great Kings who supplied him with an alms-bowl (Vin Mv 1).

  One of their chief duties is to perform regular inspections of the human world on behalf of the Gods of the Thirty-Three:

  Four times every month, on the quarters of the moon, the Thirty-Three Devas of Tāvatiṃsa, sitting in solemn conclave in the Sudhamma Hall order the Four Great Kings to report on conditions in the human world. On the half-moon days, the Four Kings send out their ministers, on the new moon they send out their sons, and on the uposatha day of the Full Moon, they go out themselves. Riding in their glorious chariots, they travel from their abodes on Mt Sineru, each in his own direction, to the lands where human beings dwell. They tour the villages, the towns and the great royal cities. There the Great Kings ask the local devas if the people in that place are honouring mother and father, samaṇas and brahmins; whether they respect the clan-elders, keep the uposatha precepts and vigil and whether they are making meritorious kamma. The bhummadevas pay homage to the Great King and inform him that so-and-so of such-and-such a clan is doing these good things and the Great King writes his name on a golden tablet.

  Having completed their tours, the Four Great Kings travel to the Tāvatiṃsa Heaven and present the golden tablets to the devas sitting there in the Sudhamma Hall. If many are those among human beings who are keeping the uposatha and making merit, the gods rejoice. “Surely the hosts of the devas will swell and those of the asuras diminish!” If however, there are few names on the golden tablets, the devas are downcast and say, “Alas! Surely now our hosts will diminish, and those of the asuras swell beyond number.”516

  The lesser devas of the Cātumahārājika realm may also be called upon to serve the higher devas of Tāvatiṃsa from time to time. We hear of the devī Bhaddā, for example, going to the Sudhamma Hall in Tāvatiṃsa to dance for Sakka and the other devas (DN 21).

  The realm of the Cātumahārājika devas is, as noted, located half-way up Mt Sineru, at a height of 40,000 yojana from sea-level. There are found many gold, silver and crystal palaces in which the devas live (Vism 13:41). The Abhidharmakośa locates this realm on the fourth of four terraces jutting out from the flanks of Sineru. It also says that many devas of this realm dwell in villages and towns located on the seven great ring mountains (AK 3:5, Eng. p. 462). Some devas of this level may also live on earth, in Jambudīpa. This was the case of Pāyāsi who had a vimāna in a dessert region that was stumbled upon by some travelling merchants (Vv-a 84). One Jātaka story includes a detail which indicates some ambiguity about the location of the Cātumahārājika realm. A marvellous archer demonstrates his supernormal power by shooting an arrow upward through a bunch of mangoes, and it travelled all the way up to the Cātumahārājika realm before descending and falling through the same hole in the mangoes.517 This would indicate that the Cātumahārājika realm is located directly above Jambudīpa, which contradicts the geography indicated everywhere else.

  The Great Kings have authority over their retinue of dependent beings (yakkhas etc.) wherever they live in the world-system and these beings also serve as lines of defence against the incursions of the asuras (§ 3:5,6). It is not always clear whether Vessavaṇa is for instance, a yakkha, or Virūpakkha a nāga, or whether they are strictly to be considered devas. These categories, which seem so hard and fast in theory, become blurry when we get down to individual cases. Furthermore, since most, or perhaps all, of these kinds of beings are shape-shifters, this makes the distinction even less relevant.

  The names of these gods are really more like titles of an office, because when one of these passes away a new one takes his place. In the case of the Four Great Kings, they are appointed by Sakka, King of Tāvatiṃsa (Jāt 74). The life-span of devas at this level is five hundred celestial years; each celestial day being fifty human years and the celestial year having three-hundred and sixty days, this makes their life-span nine million years in human terms.518 Like the higher sensual heavens, the principle cause for one to be reborn “in the company of the Four Great Kings” is said to be gift-giving. However, this being the lowest of the heavens, it becomes the destination of a person who gives with a self-seeking mind, thinking only of the reward to be enjoyed in the hereafter (AN 7:52). And yet the pleasure here is said to make sovereignty in the human world seem of no account (MN 129 & AN 8:42)!

  Each of the Four Great Kings has ninety-one mighty sons, each of whom is named “Inda” (DN 32). It is suggestive that the total of these Indas is 364, close to the number of days in a year. Inda is the Pali form of the Sanskrit Indra who was a powerful war-like storm god in the early Vedas. In the Pali sources, Inda is identified with Sakka. There is some curious symbolism here, with a higher level reflected and multiplied in a lower, and a hint of solar symbolism with 364 days organized into four seasons, but this is not expanded upon in either the canon or the commentary.

  At least three of the Great Kings also had daughters.519 A Jātaka tale speaks of Kāḷakaṇṇī, daughter of Virūpakkha and Sirī, daughter of Dhataraṭṭha, going together to bathe at Lake Anotatta and disputing over who had precedence and therefore the right to enter the water first. Kāḷakaṇṇī is said to be dark of hue and not pleasing to see. Her name means “dark misfortune” and she appears to be a sort of goddess of bad luck. She says of herself:

  I go to the slanderer, the spiteful, the angry,

  The envious, the miserly and the cheat.

  And I make all their gains vanish away.

  Sirī, whose name means “good fortune”, is the opposite. She is said to be of a divine complexion (dibba vaṇṇa) and to be of firm stance (pathabyā supatiṭṭhitā). Their fathers declined the role of judging between them and so did the other two Great Kings and Sakka, so the task in the end was left to a human seer, who chose Sirī (Jāt 382).

  The characters of three of the Great Kings are not developed in the sources; the exception is Vessavaṇa, King of the North and Lord of Yakkhas.

  3:5:7 VESSAVAṆA

  Vessavaṇa is a multi-faceted and complex character. In the distant past, he was very ferocious, but is now a devout follower of the Buddha and his Dhamma, and a sotāpanna.520 Vessavaṇa has at least three roles in the scheme of cosmic governance: he is the Great King of the North,
the overlord of the yakkhas and the King of the continent of Uttarakuru, in which capacity he is usually known by the name of Kuvera. Besides all this, he seems by implication to have some seniority over his colleagues, the other Great Kings; for instance he acts as their spokesman when they go to see the Buddha521 and he is intimate with Sakka (MN 37).

  Vessavaṇa’s importance is emphasized by his name being included in a short list which sometimes occurs in verse passages as poetic shorthand for “all the gods.”

  They honour you, both the Nāradas and the Pabbatas,

  Inda, Brahmā, Pajāpati, Soma, Yama and Vessavaṇa.

  Tāvatiṃsa with Inda, all the Devas honour you.522

  (We will meet with most of these gods later. The Nāradas and Pabbatas are not found outside of these formulaic verse passages and the commentary only says they are two groups of devas who are renowned for their wisdom. There are many of these obscure corners in the Buddhist cosmos).

  As the Lord of the Yakkhas we mostly encounter Vessavaṇa either settling their disputes, usually over the possession of a vimāna,523 or granting them special privileges in return for service.

  Being chief justice not only of the yakkhas but of the lesser devas who inhabit the Cātumahārājika realm, cannot be easy and in one story we see Vessavaṇa being distracted by the press of business, and taken advantage of:

  Puṇṇaka was a powerful general of the yakkhas, and the nephew of Vessavaṇa. He wanted to undertake a quest to win the hand of the beautiful nāga princess Irandatī, but dared not go without his uncle’s permission. When Puṇṇaka went to see Vessavaṇa, the latter was busy settling a dispute between two devas over the possession of a vimāna. Puṇṇaka tried to explain what he wanted, but it was obvious that his uncle was not listening at all. So the yakkha got his permission by a ruse. He went and stood near the disputant whom he rightly guessed would win the case and when Vessavaṇa told the deva to go and take possession of what was his, Puṇṇaka took aside some devas as witnesses and said to them, “Did you hear? My maternal uncle has given me permission to go forth on my quest.” (Jāt 546, Eng. 545)

  The special privileges which Vessavaṇa grants to yakkhas usually take the form of a limited right to capture and devour people. This may consist of a right to eat anyone who strays within a certain limited territory, (Jāt 432) who stands in the shade of a certain tree, (Jāt 398) who fails to answer a riddle (Jāt 6) or in one case, who neglects to say “Long life to you!” when someone sneezes (Jāt 155). These special limitations, which are found in many Jātaka tales, provide the perfect set-up for the clever hero, usually the Bodhisatta, to foil the evil yakkha:

  A yakkha named Makhādeva dwelling in a banyan tree had been given permission by Vessavaṇa to eat anyone who stood in the shade of that tree. The Bodhisatta at that time was a poor man named Sutana and he took on the task of taming the yakkha to win a reward from the king. He approached the tree wearing sandals and standing under a parasol; thus he was neither standing on the ground, nor using the shade of the tree and the yakkha could not harm him. He spoke with the yakkha, admonishing him for his evil ways and converted him to the path of peace. (Jāt 398)

  The service these yakkhas render to Vessavaṇa is hard. The term varies, but twelve years seems to be the most common. Female yakkhas are often mentioned as being obliged to serve Vessavaṇa by fetching him water from Lake Anotatta for a period of “four or five months.” At the expiration of this time, they are set free but can be “exhausted to the point of death” (Dhp-a 1:4). In some cases, they actually do die in his service, (Jāt 513) or are killed for stealing his water (Jāt 510).

  Before Vessavaṇa became a sotāpanna, he was terrible in his wrath. He wielded a club called Gadāvudha and when he threw it, it would smash the heads of thousands of yakkhas and then return to his hand. Gadāvudha was one of the four chief weapons of the world. (The others were: Vajirāvudha, the thunderbolt of Sakka, Nayānavudha, Lord Yama’s eye and Dussāvudha the drought-producing cloth of Āḷavaka) (Sn-a 1:10). It is said that even a wrathful glance from Vessavaṇa could scatter and destroy a thousand of his servants (Jāt 281).

  Vessavaṇa in his previous birth was a wealthy Brahmin who owned seven sugar-cane mills and gave the produce of one to charity for twenty thousand years, and this merit earned him rebirth as one of the Four Great Kings.524 We are not told when or how Vessavaṇa became a sotāpanna. At the time of Vipassī Buddha, Vessavaṇa was already a follower of the Dhamma, (ThA. 1:7,6) but since this was in a previous kappa (world-age) it was probably another Vessavaṇa. Vessavaṇa is shown as taking a personal interest in the Dhamma practice of human beings:

  The lay-women Velukantakī made a practice of beginning her day by chanting the Parāyana Paritta before dawn. One day Vessavaṇa happened to be travelling through the sky overhead, going from the north to south. Hearing her beautiful chanting, he descended and appeared at her window. He praised her chanting and she asked who he might be. “Elder Sister, I am your Elder Brother, the Great King Vessavaṇa.” He used this strange form of address because although he was her elder in years, by several millions, she was his elder in the Dhamma, because she was an anāgāmī (“once-returner”, the third stage of enlightenment) while he was just a sotāpanna. Vessavaṇa informed Velukantakī that Sāriputta and Moggallāna would be passing through her town that morning and asked her to offer them the meal on his behalf. When she agreed, he magically filled her store-house with rice, and it remained full throughout her life-time. (AN-a 7:50)

  Vessavaṇa could still show his terrible aspect towards those of immoral conduct:

  Nandiya was a lay-man of Bārāṇasī, and he made much merit with charitable offerings to the poor and meal-offerings to the bhikkhus. Once, when he was obliged to travel on some business or other, he instructed his wife Revatī on how to continue the daily offerings. But she was an unbeliever, and resentful of the expense, so she stopped giving to the poor altogether and gave only coarse food to the bhikkhus. At the same time, she scattered bits of fish-bone and other rubbish in the street, and blamed the bhikkhus, attempting to turn the townsfolk against them.

  When the time came for her to die, Vessavaṇa sent two yakkhas to Bārāṇasī to announce that in seven-days she would be cast into niraya. Revatī locked herself in her room and sat there in great fear. On the appointed day two yakkhas of ferocious appearance dragged her by the arms from her house and marched her through the streets for all to see. They then took her to the Tāvatiṃsa heaven to show her the wonderful palace where Nandiya had been reborn. She begged them to let her join him, but they said her wishes were no concern of theirs and they cast her into a terrible hell of filth, where she suffered for a very long time. (Vv-a 52)

  Another frequently mentioned aspect of Vessavaṇa’s character is his great wealth. The extent of his riches was proverbial; many times when some other person’s wealth is emphasized, he is said to be “as rich as Vessavaṇa,” or to be enjoying sense pleasures “like King Vessavaṇa.”525 In later Buddhism, especially in East Asia, Vessavaṇa became something like a patron deity of prosperity. His role as the archetype of an extremely wealthy monarch is mostly associated with his governance of the fabulous northern continent of Uttarakuru where he is known by his other name of Kuvera.

  Among Vessavaṇa’s fabled possessions, the most famous is his magical mango tree.

  At one time, the King of Bārāṇasī had a very clever pet parrot. It came to pass that the queen developed a craving for an “inner-mango” (abhantarāmbha) and took to her bed as if overcome by illness. Consulting his wise-men, the King was told that the inner-mango was a name for the magical mangoes which only grew on the tree belonging to King Vessavaṇa on the Golden Hill deep in the Himavā forest, and furthermore it was said that no human being could ever manage to pick one of these, because the tree was very well guarded.

  So, the King thinking on the matter decided to send his parrot on the quest. The loyal bird, after a long journey over the seven
mountain ranges of the Himavā came at last to the Golden Hill. And there stood the mighty mango tree, laden with luscious fruit. But there was no easy way to get them. The tree was surrounded by seven nets of brass and guarded by a thousand demon-like kumbhaṇḍas. (kumbhaṇdarakkhasa)

  The brave little parrot was undismayed, and attempted to climb the tree stealthily at night while the kumbhaṇḍas lay snoring. But he became entangled in the brass netting and the metallic clinking it made while he struggled awakened the guardians. They seized him roughly and began to argue amongst themselves about what to do with him. One wanted to eat him whole, another to crush him to bits and yet another to cook him slowly over the fire.

  The parrot was unafraid and addressed them boldly, asking who their master was. They answered, “We belong to King Vessavaṇa and this is his mango tree. On his orders, none may partake of its fruit without his leave.”

  “I too serve a King,” replied the parrot. “And I will do his bidding even at the cost of my life.”

  On hearing this, the kumbhaṇḍas had a change of heart. “It is plain to see that you are no common thief, but a noble bird. We dare not give you a mango, and incur the wrath of our lord. One angry glance from King Vessavaṇa and a thousand of our kind are smashed to pieces and scattered like so much chaff. But there is a holy ascetic living in a hut near here who is a favourite of Vessavaṇa and the king sends him some mangoes from time to time as a food-offering. He may have some on hand, and perhaps he would give you one.”

  And so it was. The ascetic gave the parrot one of the wonderful mangoes to eat, and sent him back to his country with one more tied around his neck as a present for the queen. (Jāt 281)