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Updated: June 6, 2025
While the conches brayed, and the war- cars thundered over Kurukshetra; while the pantheons held their breath, watching Arjun and mightiest Karna at battle the peasants in the next field went on hoeing their rice; they knew no one was making war on them. They trusted Gandiva, the goodly bow, to send no arrows their way; their caste was inviolable, and sacred to the tilling of the soil.
And the warlike Yudhishthira, that represser of foes, unfastened the undecaying string of that bow with which he had defended the field of Kurukshetra.
Vaisampayana said, "Desirous of living in the forest, those bulls of the Bharata race, the Pandavas, with their followers, setting out from the banks of the Ganges went to the field of Kurukshetra. And performing their ablutions in the Saraswati, the Drisadwati and the Yamuna, they went from one forest to another, travelling in an westernly direction.
Having listened from the beginning to this discourse on Hari, the lord of the universe, that destroys all sins, we feel that we have been cleansed of all our sins and sanctified entirely. Nothing wonderful was accomplished by my ancestor Dhananjaya who was the victor in the great battle on Kurukshetra, for it should be remembered that he had Vasudeva for his ally.
While, again, the high-souled Kuru was engaged in a sacrifice at Kurukshetra, that foremost of rivers, the highly blessed Sarasvati, made her appearance there. Daksha at one time performed a sacrifice at the source of Ganga. The Sarasvati appeared there under the name of the fast-flowing Surenu. All these seven forms then came and joined together in that tirtha where Baladeva came.
O son of the Kuru race, by repairing to Kurukshetra in a pious frame of mind, one obtaineth the fruit of the Rajasuya and horse sacrifices. O virtuous king, one should next repair to the excellent region of Vishnu, where Hari is always present.
The time is some fifty years or more before the battle of Kurukshetra and the ruling king is Ugrasena. Ugrasena's queen is Pavanarekha and a mishap to her sets in train a series of momentous events. One day she is taking the air in a park, when she misses her way and finds herself alone. A demon, Drumalika, is passing and, entranced by her grace, decides to ravish her.
Having committed a hundred sins, he that bathes in the Ganga, hath all his sins washed off by the waters thereof, even as fuel is consumed by fire. It hath been said that in the Satyayuga all the tirthas were sacred; in the Treta, Pushkara alone was such; in Dwapara, Kurukshetra; and in the Kali-yuga, the Ganga alone is sacred.
Rama then answered Yudhishthira in these sweet and righteous words that were highly beneficial to heroes, "I have heard it said by the Rishis, O best of kings, that Kurukshetra is a highly sacred and sin-cleansing spot, equal to heaven itself, adored by gods and Rishis and high-souled Brahmanas!
O king, repairing to that tirtha and bathing there, one obtaineth fruition of all his desires. O bull of the Bharata race, that tirtha is regarded as the gate of Kurukshetra. The pilgrim should with concentrated soul, walk round it. Equal unto the Pushkaras, it was created by the high-souled Rama, the son of Jamadagni.
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