经济学人文艺 | 印度遭到忽视的宏伟阶梯井

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Liquid assets

水贵如金

英文部分选自经济学人20190713期Books and arts版块

Conservation in India

印度的文物保护活动

Liquid assets

水贵如金

India’s neglected but magnificent stepwells are relics of a nuanced history

遭到忽视的宏伟阶梯井是印度微妙历史的遗产

THE STORY goes that devout followers of Nizamuddin Auliya, a Sufi saint who lived from 1238 to 1325, had already begun work on his baoli or stepwell when Ghazi Malik, the new sultan of Delhi, ordered all projects to stop until the construction of an impregnable citadel for him was finished. Out of adoration for Nizamuddin, the labourers worked on the fortress by day and the baoli by night. Enraged, Ghazi Malik banned the sale of oil for lamps—whereupon Nizamuddin blessed the well’s water and told his followers to use that instead. Miraculously, it burned.

故事是这样开始的。一位苏菲派的圣人Nizamuddin Auliya(1238-1325)在建造他的梯井（印地语baoli）的时候，正好碰上了德里的新苏丹Ghazi Malik打算建造一座坚不可摧的城堡，苏丹下令梯井必须停工，直到城堡建好为止。出于对Nizamuddin Auliya的崇敬，劳力们白天建造城堡晚上建造梯井。苏丹知道后非常生气，下令禁止卖灯油给这些工人，于是Nizamuddin赐福于井水，并告诉他的信徒们使用井水来代替灯油。奇迹般的，井水燃烧了起来。

Today, Nizamuddin remains one of South Asia’s most admired Sufi saints. His message of tolerance and humanity appeals in an age when political leaders preach communal division. Not just Muslims but Hindus, Sikhs and Christians flock to his dargah, or shrine, in New Delhi, where qawwali songs of devotion are performed. Thousands crowd every day down the narrow, beggar-lined passageway that runs alongside the baoli on their way to strewing rose petals on the holy man’s tomb. Many pilgrims believe in the healing power of the baoli water (pictured above).

时至今日，Nizamuddin仍然是南亚地区最受崇敬的苏菲派圣人之一。在这个政治领袖们鼓动社会割裂的时代，他所宣扬的宽容和仁慈吸引了众多民众。不仅只有穆斯林，大批印度教，锡克教，基督教的信徒们也都竞相朝拜他坐落于新德里的“达加”—即建在墓地的圣祠，在他的达加附近萦绕着卡瓦里圣乐的鸣响。每天都有数以千计的信众摩肩接踵地走过阶梯井旁的一条狭窄的，沿途遍是乞丐的通道，为了能够亲手将玫瑰花瓣撒向这位圣人的坟墓。许多朝拜者相信这里的阶梯井水有着治愈之力(上图所示)。

Until recently that water was filthy. The tank was full of rubbish; the neighbourhood’s raw sewage flowed into it. Worse, the structure, which is more than 160 feet (49 metres) deep, was in an advanced state of dilapidation. One section of its walls of grey Delhi quartzite had collapsed. Other parts were bulging alarmingly—and, for the dozens of families who had built homes atop them, perilously.

直到不久前，这里的井水还是肮脏不堪的。水池里堆满了垃圾；居民未处理的生活污水肆意排入。更糟糕的是，深达49米的井体结构破损程度严重。其中，一部分用灰色德里石英铺就的墙已经倒塌，其它部分也膨胀的厉害，对于几十个房屋建在阶梯井上面的民众可以说是危机四伏。

India has thousands of surviving stepwells, but the great majority are similarly run-down. Many others have vanished, often filled in and built upon. This neglectful attitude is extraordinary, for they are one of India’s unsung wonders. At last, through restoration efforts by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), among others, they are starting to get the recognition they deserve.

印度有数千口留存下来的阶梯井，但是大多数都一样残旧不堪，还有许多井消失在了历史长河中，通常被填实做建设用地。这种忽视的态度令人吃惊，毕竟阶梯井是印度未被颂扬的奇迹之一。不过最终，靠着以AKTC为代表的相关组织孜孜不倦的修复努力，这些井逐渐得到了应有的关注。

The earliest of the wells date back almost 2,000 years. They were first and foremost a response to a climate in which a year’s rains fall chiefly in the four brief months of the summer monsoon, when they fall at all. The point of the staircases and side ledges is to provide permanent access to ever-fluctuating water levels—and cool shelter in the hottest months. In the north-western regions that are India’s most arid, such as Rajasthan and Gujarat, the baolis underwrote life, as sources of both irrigation and drinking water. They were often located on ancient trade routes. In Delhi, every community once had its own tank.

最早的阶梯井可以追溯到2000年前。由于印度次大陆一年的降雨主要发生在夏季季风的四个短暂的月份内，为了应对这种气候，井应运而生。阶梯井旁边的楼梯和侧架是为了保证人们可以一直触碰到不断波动的水位。在印度最干旱的西北区，比如Rajasthan和Gujarat，作为灌溉和饮用水的来源的阶梯井是人们生活的保障。阶梯井通常坐落于古代的贸易线路上。在德里，曾经每一个社区都有自己的水井。

Many stepwells were used for ablution; the tanks associated with mosques, Hindu temples and other shrines offered the most purificatory form. Summoning water from the depths was also a symbol of temporal power. Around Hyderabad in south-central India, many of the baolis were built by kings and zamindars. A surprising number were built at the behest of women, including princesses, courtesans and merchants’ wives, who wished to attain immortality through the gift of water. Indeed, stepwells have always been considered women’s spaces—places to gather without inhibitions, away from men’s domineering eyes (in India, after all, it is traditionally a woman’s job to fetch and carry water). Rani-ki-Vav, or the queen’s stepwell, in Patan in Gujarat, graces the new 100-rupee note.

许多阶梯井都被用于宗教洗礼；清真寺、印度教寺庙以及其他一些祠堂的阶梯井拥有最纯净的水质。从地底召唤出水也是一种世俗权力的象征。在印度中南部城市海得拉巴，许多阶梯井是由国王和地主下令建造的。令人意外的是还有相当数量的阶梯井是由女性下令建造，包括公主、名妓和商人太太，她们希望能通过水的馈赠获得永生。事实上，阶梯井一直被视作是女人们的地盘——妇人们可以在此尽情聚会，而不用忍受男人们颖指气使的目光（毕竟按照印度传统，打水是女人们的工作）。位于吉拉特邦帕坦县的Rani-ki-Vav，也叫做皇后水井，被印在了新版100卢比的钞票上。

And, as you descend into them, what mind-boggling structures these wells are. Their early builders were capable of astonishing feats of engineering. The Chand Baori in Abhaneri, east of Jaipur (the capital of Rajasthan), resembles an inverted ziggurat. Its 13 storeys and 3,500 narrow steps prefigure M.C. Escher’s “impossible objects” by centuries. The Panna Meena Ka Kund stepwell (pictured above), also near Jaipur, is another elaborate masterpiece. Hindu embellishments to baolis included covered arcades and pavilions that served as refuges from the heat and even as lodgings. Sculptures and friezes were crammed with gods, animals and humans. Spreading Muslim rule introduced a more austere, though no less impressive, architecture of arches and jaalis (stone lattice windows).

当你走下井去，会发现这些阶梯井的结构让人瞠目结舌。古代工匠们的技艺堪称鬼斧神工。位于拉贾斯坦邦首府斋浦尔东部艾芭奈丽村的月亮水井像是一座翻转的巴比伦金字塔神庙。这座水井高13层，有3500格细长的台阶，比荷兰科学思维版画大师M.C.埃舍尔的“不可能的存在”早出现几个世纪。斋浦尔附近的Panna Meena Ka Kund 阶梯井则是另一项杰作。阶梯井上的印度教装饰建筑包括带顶的拱廊和亭子，人们在此避暑，甚至寄宿于此。雕塑和饰带上刻满了神灵、动物和人类的形象。穆斯林教义的传播给阶梯井带来了更为朴素但同样绝妙的拱廊和镂空花砖。

Not a drop to drink

无水可喝

But all this was abandoned. The decline of the stepwell began with the British raj, which insisted baolis were unhygienic havens of vermin and disease. They called for them to be filled in or barricaded. The raj’s administrators were blind to their role in socialising and as subterranean caravanserais. Independent India’s encouragement of diesel-powered borewells proved to be the baoli’s death-knell.

但是如今，这些阶梯井都已经废弃了。随着印度变成英国的殖民地，英国统治者认为阶梯井是害虫和疾病的温床，非常不卫生，阶梯井随之没落。英国统治者要求填埋或封堵阶梯井。他们忽视了阶梯井作为社交场所和地下驿站的功能。独立之后，印度鼓励使用以柴油为动力的泵压钻井，正式敲响了阶梯井的丧钟。

Yet these borewells’ impact on the water table, plus untrammelled urban development, have led to a drastic depletion of natural aquifers and a countrywide water crisis. That is one reason why the restoration efforts of the AKTC and like-minded groups have struck a chord: more Indians are wondering whether old-fashioned water-conservation methods have lessons for today.

然而，这些钻井影响了地下水位，再加上肆无忌惮的城市化发展，自然含水层快速枯竭，印度全国出现水源危机。这是AKTC及其同行们的重建工作得到全社会共鸣的原因之一：越来越多的印度人开始思考这种古老的节水方法能否给今人带来启示。

At Nizamuddin dargah, the trust has saved the baoli. Its workers cleared the tank of tonnes of sludge, and relaid the neighbourhood’s sewage pipes. Marrying traditional workmanship with laser scans and ground-penetrating radar, the trust rebuilt the baoli in a form as close to the original as possible. In the process, a subterranean passage from the saint’s tomb to the tank was uncovered, along with water springs and the well’s wooden foundations.

在尼桑木丁清真寺，该信托基金（AKTC）修复了这里的阶梯井。工人们清除了水池底成吨的淤泥，重新铺设了周边居民区的污水管道。通过将激光扫描、探地雷达与传统工艺相结合，AKTC近乎原貌地重建了这一阶梯井。在修复过程中，还发现了一条连通圣人墓地与水池的地下通道以及一些淡水泉和这一深井的木质地基。

Meanwhile, the trust also turned to the adjacent, huge gardens belonging to Humayun’s tomb, a Mughal building of even more breathtaking beauty than the Taj Mahal. The lush grounds are covered in tanks and wells that the trust is restoring. With Ratish Nanda, the AKTC’s enthusiastic head in India, this correspondent recently descended to the bottom of a baoli that was being cleared of centuries of rubble and sludge, bucket by laborious bucket. Two weeks later, water was starting to gush in. One find, covered over by the British, is a 16th-century well built not to capture water, but to ensure it flows back into the underlying aquifer. Mr Nanda says the restoration work has helped raise the area’s water table by several metres.

同时，AKTC也将目光投向了毗邻的那些规模庞大的花园，它们附属于胡马雍陵，一座比泰姬陵更加美得让人心悸的莫卧儿时期建筑。草木繁盛的花园里遍布着AKTC正在修缮的水池和深井。不久前，笔者得以在AKTC热情的印度地区主管Ratish Nanda陪伴下，下到阶梯井的底部一探究竟，那里积聚了几个世纪的碎石和烂泥靠着人力一大桶接一大桶地清理干净。两周之后，水开始在井中汇集。人们发现其中一个被英国人填盖住的，建于16世纪的井并非是用来蓄水的，而是为了让水回流入地下蓄水层。Nanda先生表示他们的修复工作帮助当地水位升高了数米。

Next door, in Sunder Nursery, the trust has converted 90 acres (36 hectares) of abandoned land into the sooty capital’s first new park in years, laid out as a classical Persian garden. Again, tanks and wells are an essential component. “Delhi needed a refuge,” says Mr Nanda. The gardens have become one of the most popular spots for the city’s families and lovers. The AKTC is now taking on the most ambitious project yet: a 106-acre site in Hyderabad, where seven stepwells were built by the Qutb Shabi dynasty in ornate, white-plastered granite. As became clear during the restoration, they were linked by underground channels that also connect to aquifers.

在隔壁的Sunder Nursery花园，AKTC将一块90英亩（36公顷）的荒地改造成了公园，这是这个遍布煤灰的首都几年来建设的第一座，其外观仿照了古典的波斯式花园。当然，水池和水井是必不可少的元素。“德里需要一个天然庇护所，”Nanda先生表示。这些花园如今成了这座城市中最受家庭和情侣青睐的旅游景点。AKTC正在实施一项迄今为止最为野心勃勃的计划：修复印度南部城市海得拉巴一块106英亩大小的区域，这里坐落着七座Qutb Shabi王朝时代的阶梯井，以装饰华美、敷以白泥的花岗岩建造。随着修复工作的进行，他们发现这些阶梯井之间有地下通道互通，并且同样接入到了地下蓄水层。

Some of the obstacles to this effort are not physical but political. To help pay for its conservation work, the trust seeks donations from Indian companies. Yet supporters of the Hindu-nationalist government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, dislike the idea of a body headed by the Aga Khan, an Islamic leader, being involved in Indian cultural work; besides, the Hindutva agenda is to expunge Mughal influence from Indian life, as if it were an alien, Muslim carbuncle rather than an intrinsic part of the country’s inheritance. They are said to have been leaning on companies not to donate. That arid worldview is refuted by the joyful families picnicking in Sunder Nursery, and the devotion of pilgrims at Nizamuddin baoli.

这一修复行动所面临的一些障碍并非是物质上的而是政治上的。为了筹措保护工作所需的资金，AKTC基金寻求印度公司们的捐赠。然而，奉行印度教民族主义的穆迪政府，并不欢迎由伊斯兰教领袖Aga Khan所领导的该基金插手印度的文化建设。此外，印度教民族主义者一直试图抹去莫卧儿王朝在印度社会中的影响，似乎它是一个异国的穆斯林毒瘤而并非印度历史遗产中不可或缺的一部分。据说他们已经向许多公司施压，迫使这些公司放弃捐赠。Sunder Nursery花园里野炊的家庭所洋溢的欢乐和尼桑木丁阶梯井里朝圣者散发出的虔诚，有力的驳斥了这一陈腐的世界观。 

翻译组：

Yifei：女，英专硕士，专八，二笔

Frank，男，小硕，经济学人的死侍

Helen，女，坐标武汉，职业翻译，翻硕已毕业英语二笔二口，爱好陶笛洞箫古诗词

校核组：

Angela，女，人大附中，托福110，爱哲学爱猫爱旅行

Alex，男，工科研究生，文学与科学爱好者，经济学人忠实读者

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