Note 92 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

“The plain of Kurukshetra,” says Mr. Talboys Wheeler, “is generally identified with the field of Panipat, which lies to the northwest of the modern city of Delhi. This plain is famous in modern history as being the site of two of the greatest and most decisive battles that have been fought in modern times. It was here that Baber, in A.D. 1525, overthrew the Afghan rulers at Delhi and established the dynasty of the Moguls, and it was here in 1761 that Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Sovereign of Cabul, inflicted such a crushing blow upon the Mahrattas as indirectly cleared the way for the establishment of British supremacy.”—Note to Wheeler’s “History of India,” vol. i., p. 272. The identification of Panipat with Kurukshetra in the above passage is incorrect, and probably led to the disappointment experienced by Sir Edwin Arnold when he visited Panipat and found that the inhabitants of the place were ignorant of the history of Kurukshetra and its precise position (see his “India Revisited,” p. 193). It is near Thanesar and not Panipat that the Brahmans find Kurukshetra, and the various incidents of the old story are associated with many spots in that locality. In Chapter III., entitled “The Sacred Land,” I have given some account of the modern aspects of Kurukshetra.