India's most beautiful step wells
Every great civilization has contributed something special to the pantheon of world architecture. Egypt gave the world pyramids, Greece provided Corinthian columns, and India provided the stepwell, elevating the humble act of collecting water into an extravagant piece of public theatre.
Known variously as baoris, baolis and vav, stepwells were designed to fill and empty with the changing seasons, allowing access to the water via a series of cascading terraces, no matter how high or low the water level. Reflecting the importance of water in monsoondependent India, most stepwells were lavishly ornamented and decked out with niches and pavilions where people could swim, bathe, perform religious rituals, and enjoy the natural cooling effect of a stored body of water.
Today, stepwells - whether abandoned or in use can be found scattered across India, with the highest concentration in the north of the country, often far from the mainstream tourist trail. Here’s our pick of seven of the most spectacular, with details on how to visit them yourself.
1. Chand Baori, Abhaneri, Rajasthan
Perhaps the most striking of all India’s stepwells, Chand Baori has featured as the setting for a string of Bollywood song and dance numbers. Some 3500 steps topple down the sides of the enormous central tank, arranged in an intricate criss-cross pattern that recalls the facets of a cut diamond - albeit one that’s 13-storeys deep and 35m across from side to side.
There’s a hint of M C Escher about the latticework of interlinked stairways, giving the baori a sense of impossible geometry. The lower tiers were constructed by the Hindu king Raja Chanda in the 9th century, but the Mughals embellished the upper levels with pavilions and arcades in the 18th century, making the monument look more Islamic than Hindu. If it looks a little familiar, the stepwell had a cameo in the 2012 Batman flick The Dark Knight Rises.
2. Rani-ki-Vav, Patan, Gujarat
The grand-daddy of Indian stepwells, Rani-ki-Vav is one of the few surviving relics from the once-powerful Chaulukya kingdom, which ruled large areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan in the 11th century. Dropping vertiginously into the ground in a series of carving-covered tiers, this monumental stepwell was constructed on the orders of Udayamati, wife of the Chaulukya king Bhimdev I.
The remarkable state of preservation of Rani-kiVav is actually the result of a natural disaster - the monument was filled with silt in the 13th century and only re-exposed in the 1940s. Today, the stepwell is Unesco-listed, both for its super-sized superstructure, and for the intricacy and elegance of the carvings of Vishnu and other deities that cover every spare inch of exposed stone.
3. Agrasen Ki Baoli, Delhi
This oft-missed Delhi landmark opens up unexpectedly in the middle of a New Delhi street, just minutes from the mercantile chaos of Connaught Place. The stepwell cuts a 60m-long slice through the earth below the Indian capital, faced with niches set under Islamic arches, accessed via a single sweeping stairway. The structure seen today was most likely constructed during the Tughlaq period in the 14th century, when Delhi was ruled by a dynasty of Turkic sultans. It’s said to be haunted - usually by the same people who warn of jinns (Islamic spirits) stalking the ruins of Tughlaqabad and Feroz Shah Kotla. Today, the baoli is a favoured selfie spot thanks to a starring role in the 2015 Aamir Khan blockbuster PK.
4. Adalaj Vav, Adalaj, Gujarat
While it can’t compete with the scale of Rani-ki-Vav, the 15th-century stepwell at Adalaj in central Gujarat is a masterpiece of the stonemason’s art - a jewel-box of column-propped arcades surrounding a central, octagonal well shaft, covered in a filigree tracery of carved flowers, elephants, deities and ornamental motifs. Although the carvings swim with Hindu symbolism, the well was actually constructed by a Gujarati sultan, Mahmud Begada, over foundations excavated by a vanquished Hindu rival, reputedly to court the attentions of the defeated king’s widow. According to legend, the sultan was so pleased with the stepwell that he put the masons who built it to death to stop them duplicating their masterpiece.
5. The Pushkarinis of Hampi, Karnataka
Stepwells are primarily a north Indian tradition, but the Vijayanagar ruins at Hampi are dotted with ceremonial tanks, or pushkarinis, that are built in the stepwell style. Within the royal enclosure, the so-called Stepped Tank is a classic Indian stepwell, long since stripped of its upper pavilions, but with its eye-catching cascade of pyramid-shaped stairways still intact. Along with nearby ruins such as the Elephant Stables and Queen’s Bath, it gives a powerful sense of the ceremony-filled lifestyles of Hampi’s ancient rulers. — www.lonelyplanet.com