Talk:Four Heavenly Kings

Untitled
How different are the Four Heavenly Kings from the Chinese Ssu Ling? I know that the Ssu Ling take up four of the five Chinese cardinal directions. Can we link these two? Hulamoth 18:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Very different. One is a set of mythical creatures.  The other a set of deities. Yik Lin Khoo 14 Aug 2006

spread to korea?
guess they were never popular there..--Dangerous-Boy 08:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I've added the Korean names. I'm not used to Hangul, so I hope I got the transcriptions correct! RandomCritic 22:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * try looking at this: Manual of Style (Korea-related articles)--Dangerous-Boy 22:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Appleby for fixing up the Korean transcriptions and adding Hangul. RandomCritic 12:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * no prob, nice little article here. these statues are indeed standard in korean buddhist temples. fyi, your transcriptions weren't wrong, but wikipedia's korean naming convention is to use a different romanization system. Appleby 17:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge
I disagree with the proposal to merge "Four Heavenly Kings" with "Guardians of the Directions". The two groups are quite distinct, having only one member in common. "Guardians of the Directions" is a primarily Hindu grouping of deities, and "Four Heavenly Kings" is a Buddhist grouping (although also used in non- or semi-Buddhist Chinese mythology).
 * Definitely true. While the Si Tianwang seem to have their roots in Hinduism, they are different in several ways--for one, there aren't even the same number. Fearwig 05:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the Ssu Ling is a different group as well. Obviously, there is a common theme to the concept of areal guardians, but it's not restricted to Asian religions and mythologies; it might as well include Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri or the four Archangels. Perhaps it deserves a category of its own or even a list page, especially if there are several additional examples. RandomCritic 11:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

As there doesn't seem to be a persuasive reason for merging the articles, I'll remove the merge flag.RandomCritic 17:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Otogi
Does anyone know if these four 'Gods' (or the Hindu versions for that matter) represent the four generals in the Otogi video games?

Mahabhuta
The following was inserted after a remark about the association of the four Heavenly Kings with colors and directions:

, although they may correspond to the concept of Mahabhuta

That may be so, but it would be helpful to have some supporting information. I don't recall any association either between the Four Heavenly Kings and the four elements, or between the four elements and the directions (or colors). If there is such an association made somewhere, it's certainly appropriate to mention it, but citation is desirable so that the connection can be asserted more confidently.RandomCritic 20:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I have heard of an association between the colors yellow, red, blue, and white in relation to the classical elements in Buddhism on friesian.com (http://www.friesian.com/elements.htm), although I am not sure whether or not this is just thier opinion. 66.24.236.62 01:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Devanagari
The Devanagari spellings used here are in serious error. They read:
 * Vaisravaṇa for Vaiśravaṇa
 * Kubhera for Kubera (and wrong form of "e" used)
 * Virūdhaka for Virūḍhaka
 * Dhrtarāśtra for Dhṛtarāṣṭra
 * Virupākśa for Virūpākṣa
 * Nothing for Vessavaṇa
 * Kuverā for Kuvera (wrong "e" again)
 * Virūlhaka for Virūḷhaka
 * Dhatarāththa for Dhatarattha
 * Virūpākhkha for Virūpakkha

These are not minor mistakes. Unfortunately, I do not have the technical capacity to correct them, so I am commenting them out until they are fixed. RandomCritic 15:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, using devanagari for Pali is arbitrary. It was never used before the 19th century, & is less used today than several other scripts. Peter jackson (talk) 08:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Pokemon?
Should it be noted that in Pokemon,the japanese name for the Elite Four is "Four Heavenly Kings"? 17:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps if an 'in popular culture' section were added? Sailor Moon's first story arc (in most versions) also contained a group of characters named the Shitennou/Four Heavenly Kings, and there are likely more examples in other stories. 67.252.14.109 (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Mnemonic
The Mnemonic is unsourced, and a google search reveals only copies of this article. In addition, it mixes Chinese and English words, so it carries the scent of "hey, I messed with words on the internet and got something to kind of match."

In addition, the paragraph pointing at the Wu Xing article does not point out which associations are used on the Four Heavenly Kings, and reads as synthesis or worse, fanfiction, rather than reporting what any sources have said. Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 16:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Tibetan
I'm not sure why we are prizing the appearance of the Tibetan alphabet, but there's no need to revert all the edits just to add four lines back in. THL is the romanisation of choice for pronunciation needs. The other definitions are legitimate: they are local pronunciations of the Sanskrit or Pali terms. Ogress smash! 18:03, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, the issue of is popping up; do we need to convert to ? Honestly I'm slightly intimidated but maybe I'll take a crack at it.

"Popular culture"
The "popular culture" section on this page seems to me to fall foul of MOS:POPCULT, since 四天王 gets used in Japan to refer in general to groups of four things. I had a go at writing something up about this to replace the existing list, but I wasn't confident in my ability to summarise in a way which clearly added to the article rather than just seeming like someone who's salty because they don't like Sailor Moon or whatever. 176.27.87.86 (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC)