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STUDIES IN JAINA ART
However, since the Vimāna of Suryābha is a Heavenly abode and since any shrine is a Heavenly abode, we must find some characteristics of Jaina shrines in such descriptions. Every heavenly abode, every Vimāna or Sabhā is to be entered by mounting certain flight of steps. And since the Jaina canons apply the same description (varnaka) of an object in all contexts, we have to presume that the flights of steps, for a Jaina Stupa or Samavasarana were also probably regarded to be of the type described in the case of Sudharmā sabhā or Yāna-Vimāna, of Suriyābha. In this description of the flights of steps, the stairs described as "tisovānapadirūvaga" (Rāyapaseņaiyam, sū. 30, p.78, and sú. 121, p. 219 f) do not refer to three flights of steps on three different doors, but three flights of stairs near each gateway.1
Thus the conception of a triple stair is noteworthy as it agrees with the of the triple stair in front of (Ur-Nammu's' Ziggurat, referred to above. The Heavenly abode, the abode of the Great, was always adorned with such a triple-stair (tri-sopāna) as is shown by the Jaina varnaka of sopāna in the Jaina canons. Here fortunately we have a very strong proof of the influence of the Ziggurat in India. ?
1 Cf: Rayapasenaiyam, sú. 30, p. 78.
* We might as well regard such similarities as the common heritage of the Early Asiatic peoples as suggested by Coomaraswamy, HIIA., pp. II-14, also, p. 4.
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