Adalaj Stepwell
Interesting facts
- A Sanskrit inscription on a marble slab, set in a niche on the first floor by the eastern entrance, records that the well cost 500,111 tankas.
- The same inscription names the overseer of the works, Maham, son of Bhima, and traces the patron's royal line back through several generations of Vaghela rulers.
- The completion date is given in astrological terms, a Wednesday in the bright fortnight of the month of Magha, which corresponds to January 1499.
- The well is also known as Rudabai's Vav, after the queen credited as its patron; vav is the Gujarati word for a stepwell.
- A small frieze of the Navagraha, the nine celestial bodies of Hindu astronomy, was traditionally believed to shield the monument from bad luck.
- Gujarat has more than 120 recorded stepwells, part of a building tradition that reaches back to rock-cut wells of the early centuries AD.
Why it is worth it
From ground level there is almost nothing to see at Adalaj: a low stone platform, a few domed pavilions, an opening in the earth. The building only reveals itself as you go down. Three flights of steps, entering from the south, west and east, lead down into the well, and from the first landing a long corridor of pillars and beams descends five storeys towards the water, each level framed by carved brackets and balconies, until the shaft opens into an octagonal well lit from far above. It is architecture turned upside down, a palace sunk into the ground, and the light changes with every step as it falls through the openings overhead.
The well was begun under Rana Veer Singh of the Vaghela dynasty and finished by Mahmud Begada, the sultan of Gujarat who had defeated him; a Sanskrit inscription on the site dates the work to 1499 and credits Veer Singh's widow, Rani Rudabai, as its patron. That double parentage is visible in the stone. The structure is built in the trabeate manner of the older Solanki tradition, with horizontal lintels rather than arches, while the ornament mixes Hindu and Jain imagery with the floral and geometric restraint of the Islamic courts. Local tradition adds a darker coda: that the queen, having seen her husband's well completed, threw herself into it rather than marry the sultan, and that the masons were put to death so that the work could never be repeated. Both stories are told on site; neither is documented.
The pleasure of Adalaj is in the detail. Look for the rows of tiny elephants, each barely the size of a thumb and no two alike; for scenes of women churning buttermilk and dressing their hair, alongside dancers and musicians; for the carved pot of life-giving water and the tree of life, and the panel of the nine planets. Four small rooms with oriel windows open off the upper landings, their brackets carved as finely as jewellery, and the descent still works as it was designed to: on a summer day the air at the bottom is several degrees cooler than at the surface.
Getting there
Adalaj lies on the northern edge of Ahmedabad, about 18 km north of the old city and roughly 12 km from the centre of Gandhinagar, the state capital. The nearest airport is Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport (AMD), about 11 km away. The well is reached by road from either city, by taxi or auto-rickshaw.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Adalaj Stepwell or Rudabai Stepwell is a stepwell located in the small town of Adalaj, close to Gandhinagar capital of Indian state Gujarat. It was built in 1498 in the memory of Rana Veer Singh of the Vaghela dynasty.
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