Stepped Well

The most beautiful stepped tank at Hampi discovered so far. It has been dated to fifteenth century A.D. the tank built of stone is square structured with five steps. The steps become smaller as they go down; thus the top most step is the longest while the lower most is the smaller. Each side has very attractive pyramidal shaped flight of steps to set into the next lower side. These steps are 9,7,5,3 and 1 respectively in each side and thus the entire tank has one hundred steps. Each tier is 1.05 mts and the total depth is 6.65 mts. The base of the tank has a stone slab below which sand to purify the water. The symmetry of the pyramidal shaped steps at each tier of the tank makes the structure very unique and elegant. Each stone used for the construction has numerals, symbols and Kannada letters in it. For example letters u, da, tu and pa represent north (uttara), south (dakshina), east (turpu) and west (paschima). In five stages there are 36 steps and each step has been assigned Kannada letter beginning from tha upto jna and ti.