Jambhala: Namtose

Vaiśravaṇa (Sanskrit) or Vessavaṇa (Pali; Tibetan: རྣམ་ཐོས་སྲས་, Lhasa dialect: [Namtösé], simplified Chinese: 多闻天王; traditional Chinese: 多聞天王; pinyin: Duōwén Tiānwáng, Japanese: 毘沙門天, romanized: Bishamonten Korean: 비사문천, romanized: Bisamuncheon), is one of the Four Heavenly Kings and is considered an important figure in Buddhism.

In Theravāda tradition

In the Pāli Canon of Theravāda Buddhism, Vaiśravaṇa is called Vessavaṇa. Vessavaṇa is one of the Cāturmahārājika deva or "Four Great Heavenly Kings", each of whom rules over a specific direction. Vessavaṇa's realm is the northern quadrant of the world, including the land of Uttarakuru. According to some suttas, he takes his name from a region there called Visāṇa; he also has a city there called Ālakamandā which is a byword for wealth. Vessavaṇa governs the yakshas – beings with nature between 'fairy' and 'ogre'.

Vessavaṇa's wife is named Bhuñjatī, and he has five daughters, Latā, Sajjā, Pavarā, Acchimatī, and Sutā. He has a nephew called Puṇṇaka, a yakkha, husband of the nāga woman Irandatī. He has a chariot called Nārīvāhana. He is called gadāvudha (Sanskrit: gadāyudha) "armed with a club", but he only used it before he became a follower of the Buddha.

Vessavaṇa has the name "Kuvera" from a name he had from a past life as a rich Brahmin mill-owner from Sri Lanka, who gave all the produce of one of his seven mills to charity and provided alms to the needy for 20,000 years. He was reborn in the Cātummahārājikā heaven as a result of this good karma.

As with all the Buddhist deities, Vessavaṇa is properly the name of an office (filled for life) rather than a permanent individual. Each Vessavaṇa is mortal, and when he dies, he will be replaced by a new Vessavaṇa. Like other beings of the Cātummahārājika world, his lifespan is 90,000 years (other sources say nine million years). Vessavaṇa has the authority to grant the yakshas particular areas (e.g., a lake) to protect, and these are usually assigned at the beginning of a Vessavaṇa's reign.

When Gautama Buddha was born, Vessavaṇa became his follower, and eventually attained the stage of sotāpanna, one who has only seven more lives before enlightenment. He often brought the Buddha and his follower's messages from the gods and other humans and protected them. He presented to the Buddha the Āṭānāṭā verses, which Buddhists meditating in the forest could use to ward off the attacks of wild yak has or other supernatural beings who do not have faith in the Buddha. These verses are an early form of partita chanting.

Bimbisāra, King of Magadha, after his death was reborn as a yakkha called Janavasabha in the retinue of Vessavaṇa.

In the early years of Buddhism, Vessavaṇa was worshipped at trees dedicated to him as shrines. Some people appealed to him to grant them, children.