Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
Most buildings are made to rise. The stepwells of Gujarat and Rajasthan were made to sink. Their builders started at ground level and worked downwards, flight after flight, towards water that might stand a few steps below the surface in August and far below it by May. The first purpose of all this digging was utilitarian. Nobody could say in advance where the water would be, so the whole building was a way of reaching it at any level, in a wet year or a dry one.
Somewhere along the way the builders grew ambitious. At Chand Baori in Abhaneri, the steps run down three sides in a zigzag so dense that photographs of it look like a trick of the eye. At Rani ki Vav in Patan, the walls of the long descent are crowded with carved figures, among them the avatars of Vishnu, so that going down for water feels oddly like walking through a temple. Adalaj, near Ahmedabad, was begun under a Hindu chief and finished by a sultan, and its stone carries the patterns of both.
Visitors usually praise the carving. I would give at least as much credit to the shade. Down at the lower landings the air is noticeably cooler than in the glare above, and for centuries the women who came for water lingered there to talk. A well was also a meeting place.
Then water began to arrive through pipes and taps, and the stepwells lost their reason to exist. Many filled up with rubbish. Rani ki Vav had already spent centuries buried under silt before it was dug out in the last century. Today it appears on the hundred-rupee note, admired by people who have never had to climb down it with a pot.
Which of the following statements are NOT true according to the passage?
(A) The water in a stepwell did not stay at the same level through the year.
(B) The Adalaj stepwell shows the influence of more than one tradition.
(C) The steps of Chand Baori are lined with carved avatars of Vishnu.
(D) Stepwells were given up mainly because their water had run dry.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → (C) and (D) only
Each statement is checked against the passage. Only (C) and (D) are not true.
(A) The water in a stepwell did not stay at the same level through the year. — True.
- The water stood “a few steps below the surface in August and far below it by May”.
- So the level went up and down with the seasons.
(B) The Adalaj stepwell shows the influence of more than one tradition. — True.
- It was begun under a Hindu chief and finished by a sultan, and its stone “carries the patterns of both”.
(C) The steps of Chand Baori are lined with carved avatars of Vishnu. — Not true.
- The avatars of Vishnu are carved at Rani ki Vav in Patan.
- Chand Baori is known for its zigzag steps.
(D) Stepwells were given up mainly because their water had run dry. — Not true.
- They lost their use when water began to arrive “through pipes and taps”.
- The passage does not say the wells ran dry.