Historical Geography of Ancient India c6.466

c6.466

*Kurukṣetra*.—This city, according to the *Mahābhārata* (83. 1-8, 203-208) is considered as holy. Its dust removes the sins of the sinners. Those who live at Kurukṣetra to the south of the Sarasvatī and north of the Dṛṣadvatī, are, as if, living in heaven. It is mentioned by Pāṇini in his *Aṣṭādhyāyī* (4. 1. 172/176; 4. 2. 130). The *Yoginītantra* refers to it (2/1, 2/7, 8). The *Saurapurāṇa* (67. 12) also refers to it as a holy city (cf. *Kūrmapurāṇa*, Pūrvabhāga, 30. 45-48; cf. *Padmapurāṇa*, Uttarakhaṇḍa, vs. 35-38). The ancient Kuru country may be said to have comprised the Kurukṣetra or Thāneśvara. The region included Sonapāt, Amin, Karnal and Panipat, and was situated between the Sarasvatī on the north and the Dṛṣadvatī on the south. The *Taittirīya Āraṇyaka* (V. 1, 1) points out that Kurukṣetra was bounded on the south by Khāṇḍava, on the north by Tūrghna, and on the west by the Pariṇah (the Parenos of Arrian). The *Mahābhārata* grew up with the Kuru people and their country as its background.⁴ In the days of the Buddha it was well known as one of the sixteen *Mahājanapadas*. The territory of the Kurus appears to have been divided into three parts, Kurukṣetra, Kuru's country and the Kurujāngala (*Mahābhārata*, Ādiparva, CIX, 4337-40). Kurukṣetra, the cultivated land of the Kurus, comprised the whole tract on the west of the Jumna and included the sacred region between the Sarasvatī and the Dṛṣadvatī (*Mahābhārata*, Vanaparva, LXXXIII, 5071-78, 7073-76; *Rāmāyaṇa*, Ayodhyākāṇḍa, LXX, 12). The Kurujāngala, the waste land of the Kurus, was the eastern part of their territory, and appears to have comprised the tract between the Ganges and northern Pañcāla (*Rāmāyaṇa*, Ayodhyākāṇḍa, LXXII; *Mahābhārata*, Sabhāparva, XIX, 793-94). This forest tract of the Kuruland extended as far as the Kāmyaka forest. The middle region between the Ganges and the Jumna seems to have been simply called Kuru's country. In the Brāhmaṇa texts¹ Kurukṣetra is regarded as a particularly sacred country, for within its boundaries flowed the sacred streams, Dṛṣadvatī, Sarasvatī, and the Āpayā.² The *Bhāgavata-purāṇa* mentions it (I. 10, 34; III, 3, 12; IX, 14, 33; cf. *Brahmāṇḍa-purāṇa*, II, 18. 50). It is called the Dharmakṣetra or the holy land according to the *Bhagavadgītā*. It is a holy place as also mentioned in the *Skandapurāṇa* (Ch. I, 19-23). The field of the Kurus or the region of Delhi was the scene of the war between the Kurus and the Pāṇḍus in which all the nations of India were ranged on one side or the other.³ The great law-giver Manu speaks of the country of the Kurus and other allied peoples as forming the sacred land of the Brahmarṣis (Brahmanical sages) ranking immediately after Brahmāvarta (*Manusaṃhitā*, II, 17-19).⁴ According to Rapson the territories occupied by the Kurus extended to the east far beyond the limits of Kurukṣetra. The Kurus must have occupied the northern portion of the Doab or the region between the Jumna and the Ganges, having as their neighbours on the east, north Pañcālas and on the south, south-Pañcālas, who held the rest of the Doab as far as Vatsabhūmi, the corner where the two rivers meet at Prayāga (Allahabad) (*Ancient India*, p. 165.).