Contemporizing Traditional Water Architecture of India

Water crisis is perhaps not a recent phenomenon. From time immemorial, the Indian subcontinent has witnessed deluges and famines. Each region has had an indigenous system to preserve the excesses or mitigate scarcity. It is increasingly critical to not only revive this past but also conserve and subsequently build for the future by taking a leaf from the chapters of yore.

- A.Mridul, Architect

The legacy of the traditional water architecture of the Indian sub-continent is supremely rich, largely dormant yet, highly resilient. The exquisite aqua-structures of the Indian antiquity, built as ecosystems to access subterranean water or to harvest rainwater, were an integral part of Indian communities from the 2nd century A.D. till the beginning of the 20th century.

Water, in ancient India, commanded the deepest reverence, especially in the water scarce regions where its availability hinged on the caprice of nature. To water, man brought the best of his skills; as offering in worship by constructing water buildings as temples to water; replete with intricate carvings and sculptures and served as socio-cultural spaces. The majority of these were sponsored by philanthropists or public and built with community participation. The cultural perspective around these sacred water structures were sewn into the daily life of people, ostensibly as social and religious rituals and symbols to manage their operation & maintenance and also as a hedge against desecration of these revered structures.

The huge repertoire of the traditional water bodies ‘bawari’, ‘kund’, ‘jhalara’, ‘tanka’, ‘bodi’, ‘barav’, wells, etc. managed by communities with a participatory and democratic approach, was relegated in favour of a centralized State controlled modern water infrastructure. This, as a solely independent dispensation, has proven to be dismally insufficient in meeting the fresh-water requirement of a burgeoning population.