A queen, a dry town and a gift of water
Giving water was a work of religious merit, punya, and a way for women who lived behind the purdah of the palace to leave a public mark on the town. Rani Nathavati's mark is the one most travellers remember from Bundi.
Green is relative: Bundi lies in the green heart of Hadoti, but the rains come in July and August, fill the lakes and streams, and then stop.
Nine dry months: for the rest of the year a town lived on what it had stored.
- Built
- 1699
- Built by
- Rani Nathavati, queen of Rao Raja Anirudh Singh
- Open
- Access rules change; we check on the day
- Allow
- Forty-five minutes to an hour
- Best time
- Late afternoon or first thing; October to March
- Photography
- Welcome, no flash on the carvings
- Getting there
- About fifteen minutes' walk downhill from the palace
- A town of water: that is why Bundi has more than fifty stepwells and tanks in and around its old streets. Our Bundi guide introduces the town's water story.
- Every family of standing: royal or merchant, wanted its name on one.
- The builder: Rani Nathavati, a queen of Rao Raja Anirudh Singh of the Hada Chauhan house, built the baori in 1699.
- Her name: some sources give her clan name as Solanki, and you will see it spelt Nathavati and Nathawati.
- Why she built it: accounts written in Bundi say it was in a time of scarcity, to ease the town's water troubles.
- A public well: not a private bath for the zenana, but open to everyone, in the middle of town where women could fill their pots on the way to the bazaar.
- A great reign for building: in 1683 Anirudh Singh built the cenotaph of eighty-four pillars for Deva, his foster brother, the son of his wet nurse.
- Display with purpose: the baori is a Rajput building with a Rajput sense of display, but it was meant for ordinary people every single day, and for more than two centuries it was.
- Queens who gave water: royal women built stepwells all over western India. The most famous is the Rani ki Vav at Patan in Gujarat, built for an eleventh-century queen and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- In Rajasthan: queens and dowager queens built baoris in Jodhpur, Bundi and many smaller towns.
How a baori works
The shaft: at one end, a deep, round or square well shaft reaches the groundwater.
The steps: leading to it, a long, narrow trench of steps, broken by landings and pillared pavilions that hold the side walls apart.
A kund is different: a stepped tank, usually square, open to the sky and approached from all four sides.
- Baori
- Also bawdi or bavdi; vav in Gujarat
- Two parts
- A well shaft and a trench of steps
- Kund
- A square stepped tank, open to the sky
- Water high
- After the monsoon
- Water low
- By the end of the dry months
- Why the difference matters: Bundi has both. A kund is all geometry and light. A baori is a descent, almost a journey.
- Through the year: after the monsoon, groundwater rises and the lower steps disappear. As the months pass the level drops, and people walk further down to fill their pots.
- Rest stops: the pavilions on the landings were places to rest, gossip and escape the heat.
- Natural cooling: in the hottest weeks the bottom of a deep stepwell can be many degrees cooler than the street. Old people in Bundi remember sitting on these steps on summer afternoons.
- Recharge, not just storage: rain running off streets and roofs found its way into the ground and the shafts, so a network of baoris and kunds kept the valley's water table healthy.
- What was lost: when piped water and borewells arrived in the twentieth century, many stepwells were abandoned and filled with rubbish, and the water table in many Indian towns fell.
- What is coming back: some of Bundi's stepwells have been cleaned and restored, and the town's interest in them is about water as much as tourism.
- Read more: our page on the stepwells of Rajasthan and our journal piece on Rajasthan's stepwells tell the wider story.
Walking down Raniji ki Baori, stage by stage
- Depth
- About 46 metres, street to water
- Arches
- Carved toranas at each stage
- Carvings
- Avatars of Vishnu near the entrance
- Watch for
- Stone elephants on the walls
- Bring
- A small torch for worn figures
The street entrance
A quiet arrival: a modest gateway, a small garden and then, suddenly, the ground falls away in front of you.
- Typical of stepwells: their grandeur is all below ground, invisible until you stand at the top of the steps.
- Pause here: look straight down the length of the well. On a sunny afternoon the arches stack one behind another, each catching the light differently.
The avatars of Vishnu
The panels: near the entrance the walls carry carved avatars of Vishnu, the forms the god takes to save the world. Travellers who have looked closely describe all ten.
Varaha: the boar who lifted the earth from the cosmic ocean.
- Narasimha: the man-lion who tore apart a demon king on a threshold at dusk.
- An extra: you may also find Indra, king of the gods, riding his elephant, though he is not an avatar at all.
- Be patient: many figures are worn and some have been damaged. In poor light, use a small torch.
The first flight and the toranas
A straight descent: the steps run down in a long line, passing beneath a carved arch at each stage.
- Toranas: in temple architecture these ornamental gateways mark the passage from the ordinary world into a sacred one. Here they do the same job, and also brace the side walls apart.
- Look at the brackets: carved with flowers, scrolls and small figures, the stone so fine in places that the edges look soft.
The elephants
Watchers on the walls: stone elephants look down as you descend.
- What they mean: in Rajput art the elephant stands for royalty, rain clouds and plenty, and in a stepwell all three fit.
- A game: children love finding them. Count them on the way down and again on the way up. You almost never get the same number twice.
The pillared landings
Small pavilions: square pillars and beams, with niches in the side walls where lamps or offerings once stood.
- The rest stops: cool and shaded, where women set down their pots and talked.
- Look back up: the rectangle of sky has shrunk, the street noise has gone and the light has turned soft.
- For photographs: the best place, with the steps falling away in both directions.
The water
At the bottom: the well shaft and the water, high after a good monsoon and low by May.
- Not for drinking now: pigeons nest in the walls, so the lowest steps can be slippery and the smell strong in the hot months.
- Barriers: in recent years visitors have not always been allowed down to the very bottom. Respect any barrier.
- No coins: they foul the water the town is still trying to protect.
Looking up
The last look: before you climb out, stand on the lowest landing you can reach and look up the full length of the well.
- A telescope of arches: the carved arches frame the sky one inside another.
- Worth the climb: it is the image most people take home from Bundi, and it is worth the walk back up, all of it.
Reading the stone
A painted town: most decoration in Bundi is painted. The Chitrashala in the Garh Palace is covered with murals because the stone here does not take fine carving easily.
Carved anyway: in the baori the masons worked the stone regardless, and the effort shows in the depth of the cutting on the toranas and pillar brackets.
Carving where the eye falls: at the arches, the brackets and the panels near the entrance. Plain walls in between let those moments stand out.
- The style: Rajput, with the flowering brackets, lotus motifs and bell shapes you also see on temples and cenotaphs across Hadoti.
- A shared design logic: with stepwells right across western India, from Abhaneri near Jaipur to Patan in Gujarat.
- What makes it distinctive: its proportion. Long, deep and narrow, the descent feels like a tunnel of arches.
- Compared with Abhaneri: nothing like the wide, open, almost cubist steps of Chand Baori.
- Water is sacred: a stepwell was often consecrated like a temple, with an image of the deity at the bottom or in a niche.
- Shoes off: many people still remove their shoes on the steps of an old baori.
- Why Vishnu: the preserver of the world is a natural guardian for a well that preserved a town.
- Learn the words: our guide to Rajasthani architecture explains brackets, toranas and jharokhas before you come.
Life on the steps, then and now
Before dawn: women came down with brass and clay pots, filled them, lifted them onto their heads and climbed back up, often two or three times a day.
The bhishtis: water carriers filled leather bags for households that could pay.
Travellers and traders: coming into the bazaar, they drank here and rested in the shade of the landings.
- Working life
- More than two centuries
- Water carriers
- Bhishtis, with leather bags
- Well ritual
- Kuan pujan, after a birth
- What changed it
- Piped water, 20th century
- May afternoons: when the street was unbearable, families came simply to sit in the cool.
- Kuan pujan: in parts of north India a new mother traditionally worships at a well some weeks after the birth of a child, a ceremony known in many villages as the worship of the well.
- Weddings and festivals: brides and grooms are sometimes taken to a well or tank as part of wedding rites, and women gather at water to sing.
- Where to see it now: rarely at Raniji ki Baori, which has become more monument than meeting place, but you may see rituals at the smaller kunds and wells in the lanes.
- Taps arrive: in the twentieth century the baori lost its daily purpose and, like many stepwells across India, suffered neglect.
- A second life: restoration and protection as a monument have brought it back. Today visitors and photographers outnumber water carriers.
- Still a neighbour's well: on a quiet morning you may see an old man from the neighbourhood sitting on a landing, simply because it is cool and it has always been there.
Bundi's other stepwells and tanks
Nagar Sagar Kund
Twin tanks: a pair of stepped tanks in the bazaar close to Raniji ki Baori, smaller and plainer.
- Daily life: in the morning you may see women filling pots or washing, and old men sitting on the steps.
- Manners: watch quietly, and ask before photographing people.
Dabhai Kund
Big and geometric: one of the largest stepped tanks in Bundi.
- An upside-down pyramid: its steps descend on every side in zigzags and small platforms.
- Best light: early morning or late afternoon, when shadows draw the steps like a pencil sketch.
The smaller baoris
All through the lanes: many smaller stepwells, some restored, some half-buried, some sadly used as rubbish pits.
- Go with a local: a local guide knows which are open and safe.
- Why bother: they show how the whole town once lived around water, and how much has been lost and found again.
Nawal Sagar
Finish here: the square lake in the heart of town, with its small half-submerged temple to Varuna, god of the waters.
- The same story, larger: catch the monsoon, keep it, live beside it.
- At dusk: the town comes out to walk along its banks.
The best hour and season for the baori
Late afternoon: our favourite. As the sun drops, light slants down the well, picking out one arch after another and leaving the lower landings in cool shadow.
Early morning: softer and emptier, with the stone still cool from the night.
- Best hour
- Late afternoon
- Also good
- First thing in the morning
- Avoid
- Midday: flat light, most groups
- Comfortable months
- October to March
- Water highest
- September and October, after a good monsoon
- Midday: the light falls flat and harsh, and it is the hour most groups arrive.
- October to March: the comfortable season for walking the old town.
- After a good monsoon: in September and October the water stands high and the lower flights disappear beneath it, which is how the baori was meant to look.
- April and May: the water is low, the descent is longer, and the bottom is at its most atmospheric but also its most stale.
- In the monsoon: the steps can be slippery, and the lowest stages may be closed.
- Month by month: our best time to visit Bundi guide goes through the year.
How to visit Raniji ki Baori
Take a guide who reads carvings: without one, the avatars and the symbolism of the toranas are easy to walk past. Our guides are local and never steer you to shops.
Walk there: from the palace through the blue lanes, about fifteen minutes downhill. A lovely way to arrive.
Shoes with grip: the steps are steep, uneven and polished by centuries of use, and the lower ones can be wet and slippery.
- Footwear
- Shoes with grip
- Children
- Keep close; few railings
- Access
- Not suitable for wheelchairs
- Tickets
- Rules change; we check on the day
- Edges: the baori has no railings on many of its edges. Keep children close and never let them sit on the walls.
- Things that change: ticketing and access rules, and the lowest steps are sometimes closed. We check on the day and never give you out-of-date prices or hours.
- Treat it as sacred: speak quietly, and if local people remove their shoes on the upper steps, do the same.
- Photography: welcome. A wide lens captures the length of the well, and a tripod is rarely needed if you brace on a pillar. Avoid flash on the carvings.
- Limited mobility: the descent is not suitable for wheelchairs, but the view from the top platform is still memorable. Our accessible travel guide explains how we plan.
- Nothing in the water: no coins, food or flowers. The town is working hard to keep its stepwells clean.
What most visitors miss
The view from the far end
- Walk round the top: to the shaft end, and look back towards the steps.
- A different picture: the arches stack the other way, and you see the scale of the excavation.
The temperature
- Touch the walls: put your hand on the wall at the top and again on a lower landing.
- Why stepwells exist: the difference tells you more than any guidebook. On an April afternoon it can feel like walking from summer into autumn.
The link with the cenotaph
- The husband's monument: Rao Raja Anirudh Singh built the cenotaph of eighty-four pillars on the edge of town in 1683.
- A royal household in stone: see both on one day, a husband honouring his foster brother, a queen giving the town its water.
The baori in the paintings
Painters loved water: lotus ponds, rain clouds, women at wells.
- Once you have walked down: you will see these scenes everywhere in the Chitrashala murals and in the work of the town's painters today.
- Read more: our journal piece on Bundi's murals explains what to look for.
Stepwells to see elsewhere in Rajasthan
Chand Baori, Abhaneri: the most dramatic, between Jaipur and Agra, a vast square well of criss-crossing steps far older than Bundi's. See our Abhaneri guide.
Amer: the small, perfect Panna Meena ka Kund sits below Amber Fort.
- Jodhpur: the restored Toorji ka Jhalra has become the old city's summer meeting place.
- Patan, Gujarat: across the border, the Rani ki Vav is the grandest of all.
- A journey around water: we sometimes build one from the lakes of Udaipur, the stepwells of Bundi and Abhaneri, and the old tanks of Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.
- Where to start: ask a planner, or look at our offbeat Rajasthan journey, which brings Bundi together with Chittorgarh and Dungarpur.
Where to stay nearby
Heritage havelis: Bundi's best rooms are in its family-run havelis, clustered below the Garh Palace.
On foot: from any of them you can walk to the baori in a quarter of an hour, rest at midday and return for the late light without calling a car.
- The two we use most: Haveli Braj Bhushanjee and Bundi Vilas.
- The honest picture: read our comparison of luxury hotels in Bundi and our guide to Bundi's heritage havelis.
- A full day: our Bundi itinerary links the baori with the palace and fort.
