Kurukshetra is just 180 kms from Delhi and crossed umpteen times but had ever thought of the place with so much historical importance. It was a quick decision as we had a Saturday before us, didnt had any meeting at office and my parents were much interested in visiting religious places and it could be suitably done in a single day. A quick browse did not give me much travelogues, just a list of temples with its historic importance.
Our plan of moving out early as we usually do, proved futile as my daughter's PTM was on. After attending it by 8.45 we started our journey. The traffic was smooth. Took around 3 hours with 30 min tea break. Roads as usual had diversions after panipath. Traffic deisity was less. So progress was quick.
The places we saw were:- (In order visited)
Sri Krishna Museum
Sheikh Chilli tomb
Staneshwar Mahadev temple
Bhadrakali temple
Jindal park
Jyotisar
Ban Ganga (bhisma kund)
Brahm Sarovar
Kalpana Chawla Planetarium (closed by time we reached)
The
Krishna Museum was our first halt. The Kurukshetra Development Board has built this 4 tier museum with Sri Krishna as the theme. The varied phases in his life coupled by the historic potteries and jewellery of the Mohenjodaro and Harappan period are displayed here. Various paintings depicting the life of Krishna - Madhubani, Pichavari, Lepakshi, Tanjavore etc have been put up in a interesting way. The bronze collections dating to the Pallava, Chola period are also showcased here. The wooden carvings and even work done in ivory depict various scenes from the life of Lord Krishna. It was a good walk around. But there are places to take rest just sit and relax for a while in here. The palm leaf manuscripts of Bhagvad Gita, Vedas, Ramcharit Manas and their transalation to Persian needs special mention.
There are six galleries
First - is pretaining to krishna theme consisting of art objects like wood carving, metal casting and ivory carving.
Second - Devoted to archaeological objects from Harappan sites, stone sculptures from 1st to 10th century AD.
Third - Illustrated manuscripts, paintings
Fourth - Krishna theme
Fifth - Tanjavur paintings of Krishna
Sixth - Collections of Madhubani paintings on paper.
The bad part is photography is not allowed. Adjacent to it was Kurushetra science and panorama center. The 3D film show as cancelled due to technical problem, we didn't go inside it.