KURUKSHETRA

also spelled Kuruksetra city, northeastern Haryana state, northwestern India. It is connected by road and rail with Delhi (south) and Ambala (north). Now united with Thanesar, it is an important Hindu pilgrimage centre. The city's large water reservoir is said to have been built by Raja Kuru, the ancestor of the Kauravas and Pandavas of the Hindu epic poem Mahabharata. The name Kurukshetra means field of Kuru. The bathing fair is attended by as many as half a million pilgrims on the occasion of a solar eclipse, when it is believed that the waters of all other tanks visit this one. Also of historical interest are many temples, a Muslim fort, and the tomb of Shaykh Chilli Jalal (d. 1582), an octagonal building done in off-white marble. Kurukshetra University was established in 1956. The area in which Kurukshetra is situated was the site of an early Aryan settlement in India (c. 1500 BC) and is associated with Mahabharata legends and mentioned in the first verse of the Bhagavadgita. The region contains more than 350 pilgrimage sites. The town of Thanesar was King Harsa's capital (606647); it was sacked by Mahmud of Ghazna in 1011. Pop. (1991 prelim.) city, 81,275.