Kurukshetra is the sacred plain north of the Yamunā. The eighteen-day war of the Mahābhārata between the Pāṇḍavas and the Kauravas was fought here. The field takes its name from the Kuru line, whose ancestor made this field holy through great tapas (austerity) and yajña. In the Mahābhārata, Kurukshetra is both a very old tīrtha (sacred place) and a raṇabhūmi (battlefield), the place of the most important war in the epic.

The Strī Parva gives the longest description of the field after the war. Gāndhārī sees it with divine sight, and she sees the great field of the dead, the weeping women, the birds and animals that eat the bodies, and the land laid waste.

Holiness of Kurukshetra

The Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas call Kurukshetra one of the holiest tīrthas of Bhārata. The Vana Parva has a long account of its tīrthas. The place is linked with brahmasiddhi (spiritual attainment), with many ṛshis and their āśramas (hermitages), and with many holy waters, of which the river Sarasvatī is the best known. The Bhagavad Gītā itself was spoken at Kurukshetra. Its first words are:

Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre

These words show that even the battlefield is a field of dharma.

The war

The war at Kurukshetra lasted eighteen days. Eleven akshauhiṇīs (army divisions) stood on the Kaurava side and seven on the Pāṇḍava side. The Strī Parva says that 76 crore and 20,000 named warriors died in the war, and that 24,165 unnamed warriors also fell.

The battlefield in the Strī Parva

In Chapters 16–25 of the Strī Parva, Gāndhārī looks over the battlefield with the divine sight that Vyāsa gave her. Kṛshṇa is with her and speaks with her. Her account of Kurukshetra after the war is among the most sorrowful passages of the epic.

The land. The earth is covered in red mud, soaked with the blood of hundreds of thousands of warriors. Broken chariots, fallen standards and broken weapons (spears, bows, arrows, shields and maces) lie scattered over the whole plain. The smell of rotting is already heavy.

The dead. Warriors of every rank lie in every posture of death. There are kings whose golden ornaments still shine, and common soldiers stripped of everything by the scavengers. Some still sit on their chariots. Some fell as they were running. Some lie with weapons in their hands.

The scavengers. Vultures (gṛdhras), crows (kākas) and jackals (śṛgālas) move freely over the field and feed on the bodies. The women who come to look for their husbands and sons try to drive these birds and animals away, and often fail.

The women. Wives, daughters and mothers, from queens to the wives of common soldiers, walk over the field calling the names of their men. Many have loosened their hair and torn their clothes. They fall over the bodies, take cut-off limbs into their laps and try to embrace the dead.

The sun. Gāndhārī notes that even the sun seems cruel. It shines on the fair faces of the fallen heroes and hastens their rotting. It brings no warmth, only more exposure.

The tīrthas

The region of Kurukshetra holds many tīrthas, among them Sarasvatī Saṅgama, Sannihita Sarovara and Pṛthūdaka. Tīrthas of Kurukshetra gives the full list.

The Āśramavāsika Parva: the tapovana of Śatayūpa and Vyāsa

Dhṛtarāshṭra first lived at an āśrama by the Bhāgīrathī. From there he went on to Kurukshetra with Vidura, Sañjaya, Gāndhārī and Kuntī. They came to the āśrama of the rājarshi Śatayūpa, a former king of the Kekayas who had given up his throne for tapas. Together they went further, to the āśrama of Vyāsa. There Dhṛtarāshṭra took dīkshā (initiation). After that he lived in Śatayūpa’s own āśrama, and Śatayūpa taught him the rules of life in the forest (āraṇya-vāsa).

Here Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī did very hard tapas. Here, later, Nārada, Parvata and Devala came. They told of the fates of ancient kings, Sahasracitya, Śailālaya, Pṛshadhra, Purukutsa and Śaśaloma. Each of these kings had gone to svarga (heaven) through tapas done in this same forest. The three ṛshis also foretold Dhṛtarāshṭra’s own coming path (gati).

Later Yudhishṭhira and the whole household of the Pāṇḍavas travelled to this āśrama in state to meet Dhṛtarāshṭra again.

The Sarasvatī bank as a refuge of the Yādavas

After the Yādavas were destroyed at Prabhāsa and Dvārakā went under the sea, Arjuna led the surviving women, elders and children of the clan eastward. They came to the region of Kurukshetra. There, on the bank of the holy Sarasvatī, the same river that marks the innermost Brahmāvedi of Kurukshetra, the dharma-minded Arjuna settled the descendants of Sātyaki. The other survivors were settled at Indraprastha and Mārtikāvata. In this way the holy bank of the Sarasvatī at Kurukshetra became one of the resting places of the Yādava remnant at the end of the Dvāpara age.

Sources

Mahābhārata, Strī Parva, Chapters 16–25
Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 19–25
Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 7
Mahābhārata, Vana Parva (account of the tīrthas of Kurukshetra)
Bhagavad Gītā (opening words)