Kurukshetra is the field of the Mahabharata and the setting of the Bhagavad Gita. It is also, and for Punjab more immediately, the site of one of the largest solar eclipse gatherings in northern India, held at the Brahma Sarovar whenever an eclipse falls.
Guru Nanak Dev Ji came to one of these fairs. The janamsakhi account has him cooking meat at the edge of the gathering, which drew a crowd of the outraged, and answering them on what actually makes a person clean. Gurdwara Sidh Bati marks the spot.
Guru Amar Das Ji, Guru Har Rai Ji and Guru Gobind Singh Ji are all recorded at Kurukshetra. Half a dozen gurdwaras in the town and its neighbouring villages date their foundation to those visits.
The dry channel that runs past Kurukshetra is identified by many with the Saraswati. Whether the Rig Vedic river is the Ghaggar-Hakra system, and if so when it dried, is one of the longest-running disputes in Indian archaeology and it is not settled.
Kurukshetra went to Haryana in 1966 with the rest of the Ambala division.
The solar eclipse fair at Kurukshetra draws people from across northern India to bathe in the tanks, and it has done so for as long as there is a record of the place.
Guru Nanak Sahib Ji is recorded in the janamsakhis as having gone there and as having made a point at the fair about ritual purity and what actually pollutes.
It went to Haryana in 1966. Punjabi families still travel to it, as they travel to Pehowa and Kapal Mochan, on routes that predate every boundary drawn across this country.