Temples for water: the stepwells of western India were a magnificent architectural solution to the seasonality of the water supply

Natural History, May, 2003 by Morna Livingston

At the same time, historians and preservationists have begun to recognize the value of stepwells as superb works of architecture, ancient monuments that deserve to be left intact and be protected. Their potential for tourism, moreover, has not gone unnoticed by the government: officials from the Archaeological Survey of India have begun to charge admission. Those "official" uses, of course, run head-on into conflict with the more exuberant ways that villagers have been incorporating the buildings into their own popular culture.

A newly adopted stepwell is quickly embellished with welded metal--considered, in all its forms, a symbol of status. The government leans toward installing metal fences, gates, and tollbooths, whereas the villagers prefer shrine doors, turnstiles, handrails, and occasionally a pergola. The government's color choice is gray or rust, and its additions always have a lock and key; the village work is multicolored and does not prevent entry. Even when electricity is installed, it conveys the differences in cultural perspective: near government stepwells it lights a toll booth; at village stepwells it enables the locals to see the goddess more clearly.

Regardless of which patron gains the upper hand, though, none is likely to reintroduce the stepwell as a way to mitigate the chronic water shortages that continue to plague this part of the Indian subcontinent. Disputes over water rights in the dry season have become almost daily news. Today the stepwells are more like footnotes to a missing text--a vanishing way of life--than solutions to the water problem. What they offer the modern age is their beauty, their solidity, and the intelligence of their engineering, all of which speak volumes about how people were once willing to match their demands to the renewable capacities of the planet.

Architectural photographer and historian MORNA LIVINGSTON ("Temples for Water") has lugged two cameras and assorted photographic accessories from northern Tunisia to southern Tuscany to the arid lands of western India. On her journeys she has visited myriad works of architecture, including ancient Roman baths, Renaissance gardens, and the "water buildings" commissioned by Hindu queens and Muslim sultans that are the subjects of her article and photographs in this issue. Livingston is the author of Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002). When not traveling to villages searching for water buildings to study and photograph, Livingston teaches in the School of Architecture and Design at Philadelphia University.