In Hua Yan Jing, Manjusri Bodhisattva assisted Sakyamuni Buddha's dharma body with wisdom, Pilu Zena Buddha and Samantabhadra Bodhisattva with deeds (tantra said that the great day was coming). Therefore, the "three Buddha statues" are also called "Hua Yan San Xian".
Three statues are a form of placing Buddha statues in Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism believes that every Tathagata has a large number of bodhisattvas to serve under threat, so as to transform all beings. Most of the statues will be represented by two bodhisattvas who serve under threat, such as the three saints in the pure land of the west and the three saints in the pure glass world of the east.
Extended data:
Three Early Statues of Sakyamuni in China
Statues of one Buddha, two bodhisattvas and three statues were quite popular in Gandhara art in Guishuang period (1 mid-century-mid-3rd century), and there were more than 40 confirmed statues of three buddhas.
There are three statues and murals in the cave of Bingling Temple 169 in the first year of Jian Hong in the Western Qin Dynasty (420). Among them, in the sixth niche, the left side of Xi Sanxian painted a statue of Sakyamuni, with the height of 1.2m and the inscription "Sakyamuni Buddha".
On the right side of the statue, a formidable bodhisattva is painted with the inscription "Maitreya Bodhisattva", and on the left side is the title of the first year of Jian Hong. The Maitreya Bodhisattva in this picture is still the threatening servant of Sakyamuni, but the inscription on the left side of Sakyamuni Buddha is written, and the threatening servant Bodhisattva is not painted. There are also several murals of one Buddha and two Bodhisattvas, which are untitled or damaged, and it is impossible to confirm which three are Sakyamuni.
The three statues of Sakyamuni in Gandhara, which embody the Mahayana Bodhisattva thought, had an important influence on early Buddhism in China. Three statues of Sakyamuni, Maitreya Buddha (holding a vase) and Guanyin (holding a lotus flower) are the inheritance of some early statues of Sakyamuni in China.
At the same time, with the development of Mahayana thought, the characteristics of Sakyamuni's two-threatening servants began to be used in some three statues with different themes, or replaced by ordinary bodhisattvas. It shows that the functions of Maitreya and Guanyin, two threatened bodhisattvas of Sakyamuni, are weakening and gradually separated from the three statues of Sakyamuni. Not only has the belief content changed, but also the image characteristics representing their identity have shifted or changed.
Baidu encyclopedia-three Buddha statues