Landmark · Jodhpur

Toorji Ka Jhalra

In 60 seconds

Toorji Ka Jhalra is a stepwell in the old city of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, built in the 1740s by the queen-consort of Maharaja Abhaya Singh. Entry is free. It is around 60 metres deep, cut in the local rose sandstone, and it spent most of the twentieth century full of silt and rubbish until a private restoration dug it out in the 2010s. Hours are not published anywhere reliable — sources split between 06:00–18:00 and round the clock — so treat it as a daylight visit. Go before eight; by mid-morning it is a café terrace with a stepwell in it.

Fees & timings

CHECKED AGAINST OFFICIAL SOURCES · AUGUST 2026

Entry	Free
Hours	Unpublished — sources split between 06:00 – 18:00 and round the clock
Built	1740s, by Maharaja Abhaya Singh's queen-consort
Depth	About 60 m, in rose sandstone
Best hour	Before 08:00, before the cafés open and the light drops in
Allow	20 minutes

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Dug out of its own city

A stepwell is only useful while somebody maintains it. Piped water arrived, the jhalra stopped mattering, and the city filled it — silt, then rubble, then rubbish, until the steps were a slope. What you walk down was excavated back out within the last fifteen years, which is why the carving at the bottom looks newer than the carving at the top. It isn't. It was just buried longer.

The India Unfolded edit

Three things to look at, that nobody points out

The elephant spouts

Carved waterspouts set into the wall, worn smooth where the water ran. They are at the level the water used to reach — which tells you how much of this well was normally underwater.

The niches

Small shrines cut into the side walls. A stepwell was social and sacred as well as practical; you came down here to draw water and to sit out of the heat.

The jump line

Local boys still dive from the upper terraces. Watch where they climb to — it is the same course generations have used, and it maps the safe stonework.

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