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Recently, I visited a local pagoda (in Vietnam) and saw the statue of a deva like this standing on the left side of the Buddha. There is another similar statue but with an opening mouth on the Buddha’s right side. The one with closing mouth on the left looks like standing for the strength/courage of eradicating the bad sientient beings (defilements) inside each individual.

I liked the meaning of this statue a lot, so I went to the shop inside this pagoda to look for a small version of it to bring home. Surprisingly, the seller told me that because the head Venerable of this pagoda used to study Buddhism in Japan, so when he returned to Vietnam, he had this statue built. This deva is particularly from Japanese Buddhism. Therefore, the shop doesn’t have small statue of him to offer actually.

Can anyone help to tell me more about this deva? Is he traditionally from Japan and what is the story about him? Thank you!