Sambhar Lake in Rajasthan is India’s largest saline lake, 190 sq. km in extent at full capacity, and lies some 60 km west of Jaipur, just outside prosaically named Salt Lake City. This vast body of glacial saline is on average just 0.6 cm deep and never more than 3 m even just after the monsoon. It stretches in length for 22.5 km, its width varying between around 3 and 11 km. It is fed by several seasonal fresh water streams, two of the major ones being the rivers Mendha and Rupangarh.

Civilization here goes back a long, long time and legends abound. According to one reference in the epic Mahabharata, Raja Yayati, Emperor of Bharatvarsh (India) and a descendant of Lord Brahma the Creator, Married Devyani, daughter of Shukarcharya (the guru of demons) who lived by the lake. A temple and a tank near Salt Lake City honours Devyani even today.

According to another legend, the lake was gifted to the people of the area some 2,500 years ago by the Goddess Shakambhari. A small glimmering white temple in her honour stands under a rocky outcrop jutting into the lake. The locals will insist that you visit her temple before doing anything else.

Archaeological excavations at Naliasar, 4 km south of Salt Lake City have yielded terra-cotta figurines and evidence of well planned settlements going back to the Kushan and Gupta periods.

Sambhar quite literally means salt, and salt has been extracted from here for over a thousand years by the various administrators of the area . Over time, these have included the Scindhias, Rajputs, Marathas, Moghuls and the rulers of Jaipur and Jodhpur who jointly owned the lake, and who in 1870 leased it to the British who built the solid square Circuit House where we were fortunate enough to stay.

The vast, roughly elliptically shaped lake has been divided into two sections by a 5-km long stone dam. The eastern section contains the reservoirs for salt extraction, canals and saltpans. Water from the vast shimmering western section is pumped to the other side via sluice gates when it reaches a degree of salinity considered optimal for salt extraction. The waters here are glacially still, edged with a glittering frost of salt. Flies abound, drawn by the blue-green algae in the water, and queue up in order to crawl into your mouth and ears. There is a sharp briny tang in the air that takes one straight back to coastal fish markets. An indigenously developed rail trolley system-the lines were laid by the British-takes one across the dam and to various far-flung points in the salt works.