Buddhist tradition pairs Sariputra with Maudgalyayana as the two chief disciples, and the pairing is a statement about what the path requires. Sariputra is foremost in wisdom, the analytical understanding of how things are. Maudgalyayana is foremost in supernormal powers, the psychic abilities that arise from deep concentration. Between them they cover the two wings of the practice, insight and concentration, and images across Buddhist Asia place them on either side of the Buddha for exactly that reason.
Their relics were recovered in the nineteenth century from a stupa at Sanchi, in caskets inscribed with their names, and their subsequent travels are a small history of the colonial period: taken to London, held in a museum for decades, and returned to India in the 1940s, with portions given to Sri Lanka and to Burma, where they were received by enormous crowds.
Sariputra's standing differs sharply between traditions, and the difference is worth stating. In the Theravada he is the model disciple and the fountain of the systematic teaching. In several Mahayana sutras he is the figure who has understood only as far as the earlier teaching allows and is corrected: it is Sariputra who is addressed in the Heart Sutra and told that form is emptiness, and Sariputra who is made to look foolish in the Vimalakirti Sutra. Being the exemplary analyst made him the obvious person for a later movement to argue with.