This paper attempts to expound two questions.1.In the Mogao Grottoes ,themethod of the combination of sculpture and painting was first employed in portraiture ofthe Buddhas of past,present and future in Cave 272 of the Northern Liang.From then onto mid-Tang,the various forms of the Buddhas of past,present and future were made inthis method,but the one in Cave 158 was the best.2.In the Sui Dynasty,three Buddhasof Sakyamuni,Maitreya and Amitabha in group of three,appeared in Cave 276.Its origi-nal form came from the Central plain. Some scholars think that it is a new type of theBuddhas of past, present and future. Hs appearance closely related to Buddhist laymenand women who placed great hope of extrication on Amitabha in the″time without Bud-dha″After the period of the Mid-Tang ;several kinds of stories taken from the Buddhistseriptures were of ten painted on one wall of the cave.So there are even more than tenpaintings of Buddhist stories depicted in a cave as if the cave were the Buddhist land ofTrikala Buddhas and Ten Buddhas.The above two types of the figures of the Buddhas ofpast,present and future gradually disappeared in grattoes
