Where in the World?

Question: Where did this 13-story wonder make a hot, dry locale feel like a pool party?

Answer: India

Rajasthan is one of India’s hottest, driest locales. At some points in the year, conditions are so arid that there is no standing water to be found at all. Even in monsoon season, the water disappears soon after the storms have passed. To help combat this problem, some visionary soul in the sixth century created the first stepwell: a deep well protected from direct sunlight, and featuring a series of wide stairs, large enough not only for walking, but sitting.

The most jaw-dropping example of this kind of architecture is Chand Baori in Abhaneri, Rajasthan. Spanning 13 stories above and below ground, with the surface of the water a full 100 feet down, Chand Baori was epic in scope from the beginning. Built on the orders of King Chanda in the early ninth century, the well boasts 3,500 stairs that descend in a geometric crisscross pattern that still dazzles. Immediately, locals began flocking to the stepwell like an oasis, making it the heart of the village.

It wasn’t supposed to be the epicenter of life in Abhaneri; it was built to complement the adjoining temple of Harshat Mata, the goddess of happiness. But over time, the stepwell has eclipsed its neighbor. While the temple is partly in ruins, with some of its pillars fallen and scattered, Chand Baori remains well preserved, and is now one of the most important landmarks in all of Rajasthan.

Fascinating Stepwell Facts from Chand Baori & Beyond:

• Keep your cool: The stepwell was the equivalent of Rajasthani air-conditioning. The air at the bottom of the well was typically six degrees cooler than the air at ground level, so the local community gathered on its lower steps to cool off on the hottest days.


• VIP treatment: Royals didn’t hang out with commoners, so there was a pavilion at Chand Baori with a special lounging chamber specifically for the nobles on one side of the step well, with separate rooms for the King and the Queen, and a live music stage.


• Borderline: In Hindu tradition, the boundary between heaven and earth was known as tirtha. Stepwells were considered man-made tirtha, so they became designated spots for meditation, prayer, and ritual bathing.


• A pretty picture: 19th-century French traveler and writer Louis Rousselet described Chand Baori as "a vast sheet of water, covered with lotuses in flower, amid … thousands of aquatic birds."


• Wellspring: The first stepwell was built in AD 550, but the craze for these sites really kicked off in the medieval era. No municipality of any standing would have dared to skip building its own, and some built multiples to prove their status. By the 16th century, there were 3,000 operating in the two states of Rajasthan and Gujarat alone.


• And that’s how you thank me? One of the most famous was the five-story Adalaj Vav, lined with a mixture of beautifully detailed Hindu and Islamic symbols. This stepwell was built by a Muslim king who fell in love with a widowed Hindu queen; she asked him to build her a stepwell to prove his love, yet when he was finished, she threw herself into it to die.


• Lasting legacy: The city of Bundi, India, boasted the highest concentration of stepwells, with more than 50 within its boundaries. These were the projects of a queen after the king spurned her for a younger woman; she ended up with far more public buildings to her credit than her former husband, ensuring her legacy over his.


• Farewell: Colonialism sounded the death knell for the stepwell building boom. The British Raj found them unseemly, and set about pumping the water out of many, making trash piles out of others, and filling some in outright. Some of the abandoned stepwells act like rainwater pools even now, and remain popular—if risky—diving spots for youth who, like their ancestors, sometimes just need a place to cool down.

Discover Chand Baori for yourself when you visit Rajasthan with OAT during Heart of India.