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Published: December 15th 2016
Rani Ki Vav 1
Just layers and layers of intricate rock carvings. This vav was re-excavated in the early 1960s having been almost forgotten completely and filled in with debris over many years. It is perhaps the best example of a baori in all India. Rani is Hindi for Queen. November 2016
Gujarat and Rajasthan, India
“
Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” Mark Twain
“
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” C.S. Lewis
“
The ''kingdom of Heaven'' is a condition of the heart -not something that comes ''upon the earth'' or ''after death.''” Nietzsche
How often are our experiences of the manifested world, both natural and man-made, an essay on the labyrinths of our minds? It only needs us to stop .. just stop the mind's side chatter for a moment in time... and simply experience that which is before us. Stepping down into the depth of the
Rani Ki Vav in Patan (Gujarat) on Christmas day 2013, there was a sense of full emptiness... fullness of sensual representation of a past civilisation and the mystique that surrounded this conception of ritualised bathing and cleansing activity; and emptiness in terms of the unknown beyond the depth that brought me face to face with my own mortality and the passing of time. And then the thought that me there as part of 21
st Century tourism in that moment was just another reality that maybe one day would be a conceptual experience for some future being in this same spot.
In the northern Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat,
Rani Ki Vav 2
The well/pool in the depths of the vav. the problem of water is a profound one. Reminiscent of Jules Verne’s
Journey to the Center of the Earth — where the characters come across a massive underground mass of water — there exists under large parts of these states a vast (if diminishing in recent times) subterranean sea. Where even annual weather cycles mean scarcity of water, let alone the intermittent serious droughts that occur, it's no wonder that heaven can be conceptualised as not just above the earth... but below too where sacred and life sustaining waters abide. Water plays a special part in Hindu mythology, as a boundary between heaven and earth known as
tirtha.
Situated at the edge of the Thar desert, these states experience torrential seasonal monsoons. Almost immediately that water disappears through the silty soils. The wet season is followed by dry summers with 40 degree plus temperatures. In times bygone, a solution for locals and travelers along trade routes was the creation of the stepwell. The earliest of these new types of wells date to about 550 AD, with the more elaborate examples being built in medieval times. Over 3,000 such wells were built in these two north-eastern states.
Rani Ki Vav 3
Situated on the outskirts of Patan in Gujarat. Here the intricate detail of the rock carvings. As man-made
tirtha, the stepwells provided sustenance, and a cool refuge for bathing, prayer, and meditation. In Hindi they are are variously called
baori, baoli, baudi, bawdi, or
bavadi. In Gujarati, they are commonly called
vav.
During the British Raj, the English rulers, with their particular views on sanitation, discouraged the use of the wells and they started to fall into disuse and ruin. Pumps and pipes were the new technology, and the the use of stepwells were often banned. Heaven was delegated to hell somehow, despite centuries of traditional efficient and effective usage of the well system.
I first came across
baories in Bundi, Rajasthan. I have been to this place perhaps a dozen times. I love the respite on my motorbike journeys from the Himalayas to other parts of Rajasthan. My guest house of choice has a platform just beside the Sagar Lake ideal for sunrise yoga. There are many
baories throughout the amazing old town, with most in disrepair. However the major
baorie administered under the National Monuments scheme in the middle of town is kept in pristine condition. Next to it are a pair of open squared
baories Chand Baori
Mesmerizing steps with the type of steps suggesting that the dutch graphic artist Escher might well have visited India (there is no evidence that he did) before he started on his explorations of infinity, reflection and symmetry, often depicting steps to nowhere.
I have happened upon other delights in Patan (Gujarat); at Amber Fort in Jaipur; and the Chand Baori on the road between Jaipur and Fatehpur Sikri. Then one comes across
baories all over the place in northern India.
And so.... stepping down to heaven …. into the bowels of mother earth. Somehow it feels comforting down in these refuges below the chaos of what is above on the surface.
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Marguerite
non-member comment
More heaven than earth
Fabulous, fascinating and beautiful, as always. With hugs!!