The three important places connected with the life and mission of Bhagavan Sri Krishna are Mathura-Vrindavan, Dvaraka and Kurukshetra. It was towards the end of the year 1969 that I had an opportunity of visiting the holy lands of Dvaraka and Mathura-Vrindavan, of which I gave a brief account in the 'The Divine Life' Journal of January, February and March, 1970. But the tour did not cover the land of Kurukshetra, a visit to which place, however, I regarded as a 'must' to complete the circle of the pilgrimage to the famous shrines of Sri Krishna. I was offered this opportunity of completing this pilgrimage when I was escorted to Kurukshetra in 1971 by Dr. Gangadhar Bhatt of Dhrangadhra (Saurashtra) on my return from a tour to Gujarat.
The purpose of this account is principally to conclude my humble homage to the purified grounds trodden by the holy feet of the Lord Sri Krishna. Also, the name of Kurukshetra has now, incidentally, come to high relief in papers and in the minds of people due to the very valuable services rendered to the glorious heritage of India by H.H. Sri Swami Harananda Saraswati and Sri Swadesh Ranjan Ghosh of the Hindu Mission in Jyotisar, Kurukshetra, as well as the recent efforts to renovate this land, launched upon by the revered Sri Gulzarilal Nanda. The fact remains that Kurukshetra is what it is, and shall remain what it was, like the sun that shines from the time of creation, however much one will try to work upon or improve upon its existence and operation.
We were very cordially received by Sri Swadesh Ranjan Ghosh and by Sri Swami Harananda Saraswati in their simple, honest and genuine Ashram, the Hindu Mission, to enter which was an unknown and unforeseen joy to my heart—a joy because I could not contain the feeling that I had landed upon the most sacred and powerful vibrations projected on mortal earth by the great Visvarupa described in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. Such a joy can only be compared to the thunder that breaks one's heart; there is no other comparison.
It was nearly noon when we reached Jyotisar. My heart was really bubbling with enthusiasm to see with my own eyes the modern remains of the ancient glory of India's culture and Divine Power. I was first of all taken to a place where Arjuna is supposed to have struck down his arrow into the earth charged with his Varuna Astra, which brought out a gush of water directly into the thirsty mouth of the venerable sire Bhishma, lying on a bed of arrows.
There is neither any attractive temple nor anything modern in the real sense of the term here, but what man would really like to see is not necessarily a modern innovation but the plain fact which can correctly mirror the original truth. We were all glad, and I was particularly scintillating with satisfaction, not because I could see anything attractive, but because I had the joy that I was standing at the very place where the Superhuman Incarnation once stood.
The next place of our visit was the temple where images of the Pandava brothers and the leaders among the Kauravas are installed. These are purely modern makes and have nothing of the ancient about them, but the fact of the holiness of the land compensates for everything that is man-made. Here I have something very interesting to say. I heard in my childhood that no one can visit Kurukshetra without some troubles, and it is thus: that if one visits it alone he will be confused; that if one visits it with another, there will be friction! Who can forget that the whole of the Mahabharata Epic is a masterly exposition on the conflict of cosmic life! When we were visiting the temple, our driver tried to turn the car around for our return, and it so happened that in this attempt he brought it back little too much and inadvertently drove one of the wheels into the mire of a drain. He struggled hard to pull the car out, but it was of no avail. Three of our co-travellers, all drivers, tried their best, but to no success. It was past one o'clock in the afternoon; it was getting hot, we were tired, we had not taken our bath, we had not taken our day's meal, and the car was fighting the Mahabharata war! I told Mr. Gangadhar Bhatt what I heard during my childhood and that we should thank God that we have been let off with a mere struggle with a car and not had a fight among ourselves! We all had a hearty laugh, which partly relieved us of the strain of the journey. Dr. Gangadhar Bhatt requested a local truck driver to help us out of the situation, to which the man readily agreed. The truck pulled the car out in a second, and we were all happy that we had won the Mahabharata war.
The third locality of our visit was the sacred bathing place known as Surya-kunda. This place has a very ancient history, which is indeed interesting to know. Parasurama, the famous incarnation with the battle-axe, is reported to have gone round the world twenty-one times during his lifetime. He felled the Kshatriya oppressors of that time and created five big tanks containing their blood, with which he is supposed to have offered libations to his ancestors. These tanks have also brought this place the name Samanta-Panchaka, later on known as Kurukshetra. Thus, the entire air of this sacred spot, covering more than fifty miles or so, renowned as the Kurukshetra-Bhumi, was once sanctified by the hallowed feet of Parasurama. After the destruction of the arrogant Kshatriya kings, Parasurama is also said to have performed a sacrifice here as an expiation for this otherwise-bloody deed, which he was obliged to embark upon. The Suryakunda bathing place is identified with the tanks of Parasurama of glorious renown. During solar eclipses (Surya-Grahana), thousands of pilgrims gather here from different places for a purificatory bath in the sacred tanks of Kurukshetra. The Srimad Bhagavata, in its tenth Skandha, records the pilgrimage of thousands of the Yadavas, led by Sri Krishna from Dvaraka, for the sacred bath in Kurukshetra during a total eclipse that occurred at that time. On this occasion the Vrishnis met the Gopas and Gopis after a long time of separation, and they greeted each other in great affection. Even till this day, the tradition of a sacred bath during solar eclipses continues in the same intensity of fervour and devotion. The Suryakunda area is now a locality of the Kurukshetra-Bhumi, and there are also other places of such sacred bath in Kurukshetra, the most famous of which we reserve for mention at the end.
After offering our obeisance at the holy Suryakunda by sprinkling the sacred waters on our heads, performing ablutions and sipping the sacred waters in Suryakunda, we moved forward. We were told that the spots worth seeing are so many that one has to travel at least 50 miles to see all of them, and even with all this effort, it would not be possible to actually locate the ancient sites for want of sufficient insignia or mark of identification. It was now past 1:30 p.m. and it was getting indeed sufficiently hot during the day. We returned to the most momentous of shrines in Kurukshetra—Jyotisar, as it is called, wherefrom a spiritual mission through the efforts of Sri Swami Harananda Saraswati and Sri Swadesh Ranjan Ghosh is conducted.
I took three dips in the Jyotisar tank, had a wash and a bath, and came out of the tank. This Jyotisar, with an old peepul tree near it, is considered to be the very place where Bhagavan Sri Krishna spoke the immortal gospel of the Bhagavad Gita and assumed the Cosmic Form. I had a hearty chat with Mr. Ghosh about the necessity to do some research to substantiate the tradition that Jyotisar is the birthplace of the Bhagavad Gita. Sufficient documentary and archaeological remains are still wanting in this respect, and I would certainly be the first to champion, in my own humble capacity, the noble cause of any such attempt at this research, if any scholar or archaeologist would come forward to do it, to the great glory of the culture of India.
It is not enough if we see merely the Greek geographical contour of a place when we go to visit any sacred shrine of pilgrimage, especially one like Kurukshetra. A country or a place has several values—geographical, historical, economic, psychological, intellectual, and finally, spiritual. A study is not complete when we ignore the higher aspect and look only at the visible form of physical matter in the shape of mountains, rivers, tanks, trees, and buildings. Kurukshetra has a horary past and it ranges right from the Avatara-purusha Parasurama, as mentioned above, and King Kuru, after whom this place has been named.
This place is called Kurukshetra because it is supposed to have been founded by the ancient King Kuru of the Lunar race. In the Bhagavadgita there is reference to Kurukshetra as Dharmakhetra, which means that it is a field where dharma or righteousness is prominent. It is the field which grows the seed of virtue and protects it by nurturing it as the plant which is to mature into the large fruit-yielding tree. The Jabala Sruti records the instruction of Brihaspati to Yajnavalkya that Kurukshetra is the holy land where celestials performed sacrifices (yajnas) and is also a means to spiritual perfection for all beings (sarvesham bhutanam bramasadanam). It is also confirmed by the Satapatha Brahmana which states that Kurukshetra is a place of sacrifice by the gods (Kurukshetram vai deva-yajanam).
In all walks of life, two streams of force always flow: Those which incite one to action (signified by the term 'Kuru') and to external engagements of various kinds (pravritti); and those which direct one to Reality and its law (dharma) and lead to withdrawal from sensory contacts (nivritti). The term 'Kurukshetra' signifies the pravritti forces operating in the world, and the term 'Dharmakshetra' implies the movement of the nivritti forces tending toward spiritual perfection or God-realisation. While action 'modifies', dharma 'sustains' (dharanat dharma ityahuh). The principle of the Soul present in all the processes of the world is the element of dharma, which subtly underlies all actions and enterprises.
Kurukshetra is famous on account of the Mahabharata war that took place a few years before the beginning of this age known as Kali-Yuga. This war is the nucleus of the great epic known as the Mahabharata written by Sri Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa of hallowed memory. The fame of Kurukshetra is the fame of the Mahabharata. This wondrous epic is a soul-stirring account of the perpetual conflict between the forces of pravritti and the forces of nivritti, those of desire (kama) and those of duty (dharma). While pravritti and desire are represented in the personality of Duryodhana, nivritti and righteousness are embodied in Yudhishthira. The very word 'Duryodhana' means 'one whom it is difficult to face', meaning thereby that desire is harder to conquer when it is given a long rope. The Bhagavadgita mentions kama or desire as impossible of approach and seizure (durasada) if it is allowed to gain an upper hand. This desire or kama is the son of the blind king, Dhritarashtra, who cannot distinguish between the true and the false, or the right and the wrong, due to the absence of insight into the essential nature of things, which is quite different from what the senses perceive as the externalised world of multiplicity. It is ignorance of the Unity behind things that sustains this world of desire and activity (dhrita-rashtra). The sons of Dhritarashtra are one hundred, which means that the ten senses pull the individual in ten different directions, drowning him in complete confusion and entanglement. The army of the Kauravas, led by Duryodhana, is said to consist of eleven akshauhinis, which means that the ten senses, with the mind as the eleventh, have millions of directions to work under the promptings of desire. The Kauravas banish the righteous Pandavas, and the virtuous forces live in exile and incognito under the rule of desire and ego, which is Duryodhana; but the virtuous forces of the Pandavas are carefully protected by unseen Divine Powers, by which these forces gather strength and prepare for a final war upon unrighteousness and evil—desire and ego. The means adopted are a very gradual approach to the problem, stage by stage, by pleading and conciliation (sama), by sacrifice of share (dana), by threat (bheda) and finally by actual confrontation and frontal attack (danda). Bhagavan Sri Krishna, as the representative of the Absolute, rules the destiny of the righteous forces, and the war of the Mahabharata is finally won.
May the holy land of Kurukshetra receive the perennial blessings of the Almighty.