This is not a very pragmatic question, but here goes. I know there are a number of serious practitioners here who are also (or, like myself, were once) steeped in the western esoteric tradition.
I am not much for syncretism or positing underlying correspondences between esoteric traditions, and yet... I’ve long been intrigued by the apparent similarity between the standard western magical circle (like that which features in the "lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram" or its derivatives) and the “Four Kings" cosmology we get glimpses of in the Pali canon.
In the Pali texts, we often have references to the Four Kings, associated with the fours directions and the class of creatures over which they rule.
Thus, we get descriptions of the “deva-sabhā” the devas in assembly at the Sudhamma hall in Tāvatiṃsa, like this:
purimāni bhante, divasāni purimatarāni tadahuposathe pannarase vassūpanāyikāya puṇṇāya puṇṇamāya rattiyā kevalakappā ca devā tāvatiṃsā sudhammāyaṃ sabhāyaṃ sannisinnā honti sannipatitā. mahatī ca dibbaparisā samantato nisinnā hoti cattāro ca mahārājāno catuddisā nisinnā honti. puratthimāya disāya dhataraṭṭho mahārājā pacchimābhimukho nisinno hoti deve purakkhatvā; dakkhiṇāya disāya virūḷhako mahārājā uttarābhimukho nisinno hoti deve purakkhatvā; pacchimāya disāya virūpakkho mahārājā puratthābhimukho nisinno hoti deve purakkhatvā; uttarāya disāya vessavaṇo mahārājā dakkhiṇābhimukho nisinno hoti deve purakkhatvā. yadā, bhante, kevalakappā ca devā tāvatiṃsā sudhammāyaṃ sabhāyaṃ sannisinnā honti sannipatitā, mahatī ca dibbaparisā samantato nisinnā honti, cattāro ca mahārājāno catuddisā nisinnā honti, idaṃ nesaṃ hoti āsanasmiṃ.
In olden days, bhante, on the uposatha full moon night at the beginning of the rainy season, nearly all the deities of Tāvatiṃsa would assemble, seated together in the Sudhamma assembly hall. And a great divine assembly would be seated on every side, and the Four Great Kings seated in the four directions: the king Dhataraṭṭha would be seated in the east, at the head of his devas, facing west; the king Virūḷhaka would be seated in the south, at the head of his devas, facing north; the king Virūpakkha would be seated in the west, at the head of his devas, facing east; and the king Vessavaṇa would be seated in the north, at the head of his devas, facing south. When nearly all the deities of Tāvatiṃsa would assemble in the Sudhamma assembly hall, and a great divine assembly would be seated on every side, and the Four Great Kings seated in the four directions, this would be their order, with regard to sitting.
We find similar references to this order in the Āṭānāṭiya and Mahāsamaya suttas: Dhataraṭṭha, the lord (adhipati) of the gandhabbas, in the east; Virūḷhaka, the lord of the kumbhaṇḍas, in the south; Virūpakkha, the lord of the nāgas, in the west, and Vessavaṇa, the lord of the yakkhas, in the north. In the Āṭānāṭiya, verses evocative of this structure are actually given by the Four Kings to the Buddha for recitation as a charm for protection from non-material beings. In the Mahāsamaya, the kings are again described in this arrangement:
purimaṃ disaṃ dhataraṭṭho, dakkhiṇena virūḷhako.
pacchimena virūpakkho, kuvero uttaraṃ disaṃ.
cattāro te mahārājā, samantā caturo disā.
daddallamānā aṭṭhaṃsu, vane kāpilavatthave.
To the east, Dhataraṭṭha; to the south, Virūḷhaka;
to the west, Virūpakkha; to the north Kuvera ( = Vessavaṇa);
those four great kings in the four directions
stood shining brightly in the Kapilavatthu woods.
So since we’re drawing pentagrams and things these days, let me just come out and address the elephant in the room: to my eye, this is uncannily similar to the LBRP and derived structures, where a sacred space is ritually demarcated by “banishing” the negativities of a given direction with a pentagram and then invoking the being/angel in charge of that direction and his given elemental forces. Even the Pali descriptions are in fact suggestive of a circle, invariably proceeding clockwise from east. And while no elemental correspondence ever seem to be explicit in the Pali, the case can certainly be made for an affinity between gandhabbas and the air element, kumbandhas and the fire element, nāgas and the water element, and yakkhas and the earth element.
I find this remarkable. While maṇḍalas, essentially elaborate visualized magic circles (into which various deities could be invoked), became standard fare I guess in the tantric era, we are talking about the suttas here. The earliest maṇḍala-like thing we see in Buddhism is usually considered to be a description in the apadānas. Thānissaro bhikkhu has written on this. But this is way prior to that. And the similarity between the bastardized western ritual structure (god knows its origin) and the Pali structure is uncanny. Can anyone shed some light on this? Is the LBPR a modern-day āṭānāṭiya paritta? Is the āṭānāṭiya an ancient magic circle?
