Rajasthan is dry and the water table is deep, so instead of a bucket on a rope the answer here was architecture: cut down to the water in steps, and keep cutting as the water drops. This one goes 13 storeys and about 30 metres down, with 3,500 narrow steps folded across three walls in a pattern that looks like an inverted pyramid. Building ran from around 800 to 900 CE, and the name points to Raja Chanda of the Nikumbh dynasty, though no inscription confirms it. A stepwell was never only a well. Pilgrims rested here out of the sun, the village met here, and ceremonies happened here, helped by the fact that the air at the bottom sits 5 or 6 degrees cooler than the air at the top. Abhaneri village, Dausa district.
Dausa, Rajasthan, India
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