JETHABHAI NI VAV

Stepwells arose out of a need for a perennial water source in the semi-arid region of water, water used to be a precious resource and these stepwells used to act like refuges where travellers can take shelter. Stepwells were and still are considered to be extremely expensive to construct, thus they were only built where good year-long groundwater is available. Historically stepwells were built near a present water source like Rani Ki Vav is near the Saraswati River and Adalaj ni Vav is near a Lake, and in this case, Jethabhai’s stepwell is near Isanpur lake.

Jethabhai a wealthy Gujarati businessman started the construction of the stepwell, he used various derelict ancient structures to build this structure. The two major mosques which were used were Malik Alam Masjid in Danilimda and Nenpurvada Masjid, the Stepwell today also shows signs of reuse and repurpose, some of the original columns of the derelict mosques have been used as columns inside the stepwell, thus providing an excellent example of reuse of old materials from derelict structures. In some cases, the sculptures also are older than the stepwell itself.