Citation: Zhu, Tianshu. 2023. Lute, Sword, Snake, and Parasol—The Formation of the Standard Iconography of the Four Heavenly Kings in Chinese Buddhist Art. Religions 14: 798. htps://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel14060798 Academic Editor: Xiaohuan Zhao Received: 28 February 2023 Revised: 22 May 2023 Accepted: 11 June 2023 Published: 16 June 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Atribution (CC BY) license (htps:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). religions Article Lute, Sword, Snake, and Parasol—The Formation of the Standard Iconography of the Four Heavenly Kings in Chinese Buddhist Art Tianshu Zhu Department of History, University of Macau, Macau, China; tszhu@umac.mo Abstract: The Four Heavenly Kings, Sida Tianwang 四大天王, are the guardians of the four quarters of the world in Buddhism. They are among the most frequently represented protective deities in Buddhist art across diferent traditions. In their standard iconographies developed in China popu‑ lar during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911), they wear full armor, and each holds exclusive atributes—lute (pipa 琵琶), sword, snake, and parasol—from the east, south, west, to the north re‑ spectively. There is no direct textual base in the Chinese cannon for such iconographies. Neither can we fnd prototypes in India or central Asia. Indeed, how did this iconographic group develop in China? In the past, since the standard iconographies of the Four Heavenly Kings are clear, and iden‑ tifcation is no problem, comprehensive in‑depth study on this is lacking. Actually, those atributes came from a Tantric tradition related to Tibetan Buddhism fltered through the Xi Xia (1036–1227) and Yuan (1206–1368). What revealed in the development of this iconography is the complex rela‑ tionship among the Tibetan, Tanguts, Mongols, and Chinese Buddhism. Keywords: Four Heavenly Kings; Khara Khoto; lute‑sword‑snake‑parasol The Four Heavenly Kings, called Sida Tianwang 四大天王 in Chinese, are the guardians of the four quarters of the world in Buddhism. They are Dhṛtaraṣtra of the East, Virūḍhaka of the South, Virūpākṣa of the West, and Vaiśravaṇa of the North; In Sanskrit, they are re‑ ferred to as Dikpāla “Guardians of Directions”, Lokapāla “Guardians of the World”, or Cāturmahārāja the “Four Great Kings.” Each of these terms describes their nature and function. As a group, they are among the most frequently represented protective deities in Buddhist art across diferent traditions. In their standard iconography prevalent in China during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, they wear full armor with blowing scarves, and they hold exclusive atributes—a lute (pipa 琵琶), a sword, a snake + jewel, and a parasol (zhuang 幢) + stupa—pertaining to the East, South, West, and North, respectively, as shown in in the ritual paintings (ca. 1460) called shuilu 水陆, or the “water and land” paintings in the Baoning Temple (Figure 1). However, such icono‑ graphies of the four deities have been absent in Indian Buddhist art, and they were not full‑fedged in Chinese Buddhist art as standard until the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368). In the long history of Buddhist art in China since the sixth century, the Four Great Kings de‑ veloped their costumes of armor and scarf, and the Heavenly King of the North came to hold a stupa, but all held only various generic weapons. In fact, it was not the Chinese tradition of the time for such high‑ranking deities to hold things such as the lute, snake, and parasol, which would be regarded either powerful or graceful. In addition, there is no direct textual base in the scripture of the Chinese canon for such imagery. The closest texts that scholars have frequently cited are two Tibetan liturgies on Bhaiṣajyaguru trans‑ lated into Chinese in the Yuan and Qing dynasties, respectively, the Bhaiṣajyaguru Rites 師琉璃王七本願功德經念誦軌養法 (T. 19.926) 1 and the Bhaiṣajyaguru Maṇḍala 修師軌布壇法 (T. 19.928) 2 . As a result, scholars have long interpreted the formation of this iconography in China to have been infuenced from Tibet (E. Matsumoto 1937, pp. 570–71; Murata 1954, pp. 86–67; Fisher 1995, pp. 17–24; Lin 2009, pp. 269–79). In extant Religions 2023, 14, 798. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060798 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions