The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s2.1.4

c19.s2.1.4

In Buddhist mythology too we find a group of four divine beings associated with the four principal quarters, and the Sanskrit Buddhist texts give us a stereotyped list of four; they are Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the Gandharva king (east), Virūḍhaka, the king of the Kumbhāṇḍas (south), Virūpākṣa, the Nāga monarch (west) and Vaiśravaṇa, the Yakṣa king (north). They are the Catur-Mahārājas of some Buddhist texts, and Pāṇini seems to have had them in his mind when he referred to their bhaktas in one of his sūtras (cf. supra, p. 85). The Jaina literature refers to a group of the Dikpālas, most of whose names and associations being similar to the stereotyped list of the later Hindu mythological texts.¹