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APPENDIX
Note on Stupa, Samavasarana and Ziggurat
On pp. 56-57, and p. 93, it is suggested that the Jaina “Samavasarana is based upon the architecture of a Stūpa which latter has for its prototype that of the Ziggurat with three or more tiers".
The tiered-shrines, illustrated by Coomaraswamy, History af Indian and Indonesian Art, figures 69, 69A, may be compared with the Sama vasaraña illustrated in fig. 76 and the Pañca-Meru, fig 78. It may be remembered that the Samavasaraṇa is not always circular. It is either square or circular.
On p. 56, I have further said that such tiered shrines have for their basis the conception of Jårūka or Ziggurat (or Aidūka ) discussed by Dr. Agrawala.
The Ziggurat is a peculiar feature of Sumerian architecture which can be traced back, according to Woolley, to the chalcolithic Al'Ubaid period. 1
In form the Ziggurat is a stepped pyramid having three stages. The lowest stage measures about 200 ft. long x 150 ft. wide x 50 ft. high, at UrNammu. "From this rose the upper stages, each smaller than the one below, leaving broad passages along the main sides and wider terraces at either end. On the topmost stage stood the little one-roomed shrine of the Moon-God.... On three sides the walls of this Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu) rose to the level of the first terrace, but on the north-east face fronting the Nannar temple was the approach to the shrine. Three brick stairways, each of a hundred steps, led upwards, one projecting out at right angles from the building, two leaning against its wall, and all converging in a great gateway between the first and the second terrace...."3
Of the Ziggurat of Babylon (The Tower of Babel), only the ground. plan survives, but being almost identical with that of Ur, and also built by Ur
Woolley, Sir Leonard, Excavations at Ur, (London, 1954), p. 125. For a front view of the Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu with the triple stairs in front, see, Ibid, pl. 18, and p. 130, fig. 7, conjectural reconstruction of the same Ziggurat, and p. 218, fig. 18 for a reconstruction of the Ziggurat of Nabonidus.
According to Frankfort and others, no Ziggurat belonging to the third millenium B.C. is known to us, and that from the Third Dynasty of Ur onwards, Ziggurats occur regularly, see, Frankfort, Henri, The Art and Architecture of the Orient, (London 1954), p. 236, n. 19.
2 Woolley, op. cit., p. 130. 3 Woolley, op. cit., pp. 130-131, and fig. 7, also, pl. 18b.
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