Place · stepwell · India
Chand Baori, Abhaneri
The square stepwell at Abhaneri in Dausa district, Rajasthan, built by Chahamana king Chand Raja in the 9th century — 13 stories, 20 metres deep, with roughly 3,500 steps descending in a precise geometric criss-cross pattern on three sides to the water square at the bottom. The fourth side is a Harshat Mata temple shrine built into the wall. Chand Baori is one of the deepest and largest step-wells in India and the model-case for the North Indian baoli type — the stepwell as both hydraulic infrastructure (storing water in the arid Rajasthani climate) and public gathering space. Pigeons and bats now inhabit the lower levels; the baoli no longer holds water.
- Function
- Water & infrastructure
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.007, 76.606
Connections (3)
- Architectural modelRani ki Vav, Patan
Two solutions to the same problem of getting a population down to falling groundwater and back up carrying it. Patan answers with a long processional descent lined in sculpture; Abhaneri with a pure geometry of some three and a half thousand steps in a double helix. One is a temple underground, the other a machine.
- Architectural modelKhooni Bhandara, Burhanpur
A Persian qanat and an Indian stepwell, two hydraulic traditions meeting the same water table by opposite means. Burhanpur's Khooni Bhandara draws water sideways along tunnels cut nearly level for kilometres; Abhaneri goes straight down thirteen storeys. One hides the work, the other makes architecture of it. Burhanpur's tunnels still supply parts of the town four centuries after they were cut, which no Indian stepwell can claim.
- Architectural modelThe vāv
Gujarat's vav and Rajasthan's baori are the two solutions to the same problem and they look nothing alike: the vav is a long stepped corridor going down to a well shaft with carved pavilions at each landing, and Chand Baori at Abhaneri is a square open tank with thirty-five hundred steps in a criss-cross lattice down all four sides. One is a covered building and the other is a geometric void, and both work by putting the water table within reach in the dry months.
On these journeys
Sources
Chand Baori — ASI
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