What’s with India and it’s love for step-wells?

In the famous Batman movie Dark Knight Rises, we saw a stepwell jail. Then there’s the Bollywood movie Paheli which also features a step well shoot location. And we could name many more movies and TV shows that have feature step-wells from India. Step-wells in India have indeed become popular movie shoot locations for sure. But more importantly, why did these even exist in the first place?

So to get into some facts, as of today, we have a little more than 2000 step-wells in India! The first step-wells were built in southwestern Gujarat around 600AD and were originally used by communities as an art form. Slowly and steadily, they began to spread north towards Rajasthan and then also in some parts of western India. One by one, they started increasing in number and the construction of these stepwells reached its peak towards the end of the 16th century.

So now let's talk about what could possibly have been the intention to make these in the first place? As you see nowadays too, these are massive wells that can store very large quantities of water, which was then useful especially when there was a shortage of rain or during times of drought. In addition to this, stepwells also had many other characteristics. They were fairly significant from a socio-cultural and religious point and were also strong enough to withstand natural calamities like earthquakes. India has many beautiful stepwells, how many have you visited? What did you think of them? Do let us know what you thought of them in the comments.