Adalaj – My first tryst with step wells!
Frankly speaking, I had not even the faintest idea about step wells. A few days after I arrived in Gandhinagar, my friend Kaushik suggested, “Go, check this Vav (step well) at Adalaj; it’s beautiful!” I didn’t pay much thought to it; I thought it to be something like the huge wells (10-15 meter diameter) I saw in Deoghar district in Bihar (I guess it is Jharkhand now) which had a single door halfway down on their walls that connected to the ground level above with a straight flight of stairs – a clever way to save your rope length when the water went really low in summer.
BTW, I haven’t watched the Bollywood movie ‘Paheli’, neither the Hollywood flick ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ both of which feature the famous Chand Baori (step well) of Abhaneri, Rajasthan. It’s a different matter though that most of these Baoris of Rajasthan are more of stepped ponds than step wells or a hybrid of both as I later learnt from Morna Livinston’s book (More about the book later). The Baolis of Delhi (to learn about these visit my friend Somdeb Basu’s blog here) however are somewhat similar to the Vavs (pronounced between Vow and Wow) of Gujarat.
Ok, getting back to Adalaj Step Well, I went there on a late December evening, when my friends Dr. Tanmay and Dr. Sanchita Mahapatra arrived from Kolkata (for an upcoming Kutch trip) and I wanted to take them somewhere on the first free day they had. I kind of went across the temple compound, walked up the stairs and ‘Whoa! What have I been missing all this time!” I thought aloud.
Well, well, well, from then on I started delving into the wells, literally and figuratively. I have been to Adalaj half a dozen times more after that; with my wife, with friends on visit, and even with the trainees of the ILP (Initial Learning Program) batches of my office.
Other than the breathtaking sculptures at the first level, what greets you here is also the coolness of its recesses. This step well has five floors going down till the water level of the well shaft during the driest times. Oriented North-South, the entrance is at the South through three staircases from the East, South, and West. The southern stairs have been locked up and the western one leads to a manicured garden, so you will be entering through the eastern steps. At the first floor (of descent) you will be fascinated by the beautiful polygonal landing hall with intricately carved pillars.
Don’t miss the walls though, for the relief work of elephants, women at work and daily life, and lion hunts could give you an impression of the age when this well was built.
On the four corners are little rooms with big windows opening towards the hall.
Look at the beams that run between these rooms and the pillars – the carvings will make you dizzy, “Hindu? Islamic? Persian? Jain? – what style is this?”
Now, if you want to untangle the puzzle, try to find the Sanskrit inscription nearby (I couldn’t). There is an English notice outside the well that talks about this inscription.
The history (with a pinch of legend added) says that the construction of this structure was started by a Vaghela Rajput ruler, Rana Veer Singh, who died during a battle with the Muslim (Persian) ruler Mahmud Begada. Begada, however, didn’t stop or hinder the construction but rather hastened it by bringing in more workers. This might have two reasons – 1. Throughout the history we find many Hindu structures being destroyed by Muslim rulers/invaders and many Jain/Buddhist structures being destroyed by Hindu rulers too, but none of them ever tampered with any step wells. Since these were rainwater harvesting structures built mainly for the subjects, no one dared to be the reason of their dissatisfaction. 2. It is said that Begada was attracted towards Rana Veer Singh’s widow, Queen Rudabai and wanted to marry her. Rudabai, agreed to marry Begada on a condition that he had to complete the construction of the step well first. But on completion of the structure in 1498, clever Rudabai called the priests to invoke the Goddess in the step well and make the water pious. Once this was done, she jumped into it and committed suicide. That kind of sums the presence of various architectural styles, sculptural styles and their mishmash in this well.
Coming back to the scene of action, from the hall you must turn right and get down the flight of stairs to arrive at the second floor and so on till the fifth. All along, the pillars and beams will fascinate you with their carvings.
On the walls on the east and west that lead till the well shaft, you will find large niches cut to form shrines – some of them bearing the carving of the Kalp-vriksha (Tree of Life) or the Amrit Kalash (Pot of Ambrosia).
The pillars and beams are joined by ornate structures carved of stone, ones that look like the tied up curtains or that look like the body of a scaled dragon or serpent.
At the fifth level, you will come near a squarish water body, now covered with a wire mesh to prevent people from jumping in. Below the translucent green waters, you can see coins shining – offerings from the devotees. On my first visit, I guessed this water body to be the well shaft, but later discovered it was the holy pond or Kund.
The well shaft lies behind it, cordoned off from public view. Once I visited Adalaj in the early morning, when the gates were not opened (they open the gates at 8 am). When we expressed our desire to visit, the priest in the adjacent temple suggested us to jump the gates. We did so, and discovered the step well once again. There were no visitors other than us, no guards too. So, we walked along the narrow ledges of the first floor pavilion, jumping over the bed of spikes put up on them to check people from this daredevil act. And only then, we could go till the well shaft. Looking down from the balcony with a sitting ledge, the back rest of which formed a part of the wall of the shaft, we saw the waters below and the carving of the twin fishes on the well’s distant wall. These fish relief, later I found in a few other step wells too, symbolizes the fertility of the water in the well.
Once done with your walk till the kund, you can climb up the stairs and go back to the hall on the first floor. From here, turn right and take the stairs on the west (opposite to the one you have used while entering).
While getting out, look at the floral reliefs on the beam below which you passed and once out in the garden, look closely at the big Kalp-vriksha motifs carved on the half pillars (gate post type) at the exit.
Now take the short flight of stairs to the roof of the step well. While walking along the edge of the elongated keyhole shaped plan of the step well (the round part being the well and the rectangular elongated parts the pavilions) you will find two spiral stair cases, locked now with wire mesh lids, that people could use to reach the well without going through the pavilions. Also take a look at the mesh covered well shaft though you wouldn’t be able to make out much in the dark abyss (except if it’s midday).
While coming back, stop at the mounds on the roof. There were seven of these once, now five remain. The guard told me, these were the graves of the seven engineers/architects who had built this well. Apparently after the completion of the well, Begada had asked them if they could build another structure like this, to which they had confidently answered yes. The king, however, wanted his work to remain unique and unreplicated and thus put these poor fellows to the swords.
Personally, I don’t think this story as true, because one of the step wells at Asarva (Dada Harir ni Vav), also built during Begada’s reign, has a lot of similarities with the one at Adalaj and seems to be created by same set of architects. About Dada Harir ni Vav, I’ll tell you in my next post on stepwells.
Alive and Kicking in Gujarat 