Compiled and translated from the Pāli texts
In many temples of Sri Lanka you will find on either side of the Buddha image, the statues of two monks. Their robes are draped over one shoulder and they stand in the attitude of reverence, with joined palms. Quite often there are a few flowers at their feet, laid there by some pious devotee.
If you ask who they are, you will be told that they are the Enlightened One’s two chief disciples, the arahats Sariputta and Maha Moggallna. They stand in the positions they occupied in life, Sariputta on the Buddha’s right, Maha Moggallana on his left. When the great stupa at Sanchi was opened up in the middle of the last century, the relic chamber was found to contain two stone receptacles; the one to the north held the body relics of Maha Moggallana, while that on the south enclosed those of Sariputta. Thus they had lain while the centuries rolled past and the history of two thousand years and more played out the drama of impermanence in human life.
[pdf]http://www.dhammikaweb.com/pdfs/The_Life_of_Sariputta_VenNyanaponikaThero.pdf[/pdf]
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