Journey to the Field of Kurukshetra, the site of the epic Battle of The Bhagavad-Gita

One weekend I was able to make a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra, the present-day city on the “Field of Kuru” from The Bhagavad-Gita. I was able to visit the temple and the Banyan Tree which mark the site where Shiva revealed himself to Arjuna. What a stirring experience! The heavy stone city gates were topped with a statue of the famous charioteer. The city was as modern as most that we passed on the way traveling north from Delhi: many automobiles dodging heavily-laden fruitcarts, busy kirana stores lining the streets selling paan and Lays potato chips to passers-by. Inside the city, we visited the museum which housed many regional artifacts and mythical dioramas, and also the sacred tank which is a venue for many of the city’s melas.
Beyond there, it was fairly easy to find the temple, an open-air bi-level marble structure that was punctuated by trunks of the Banyan upon which it was built (it made me think of Crusoe!). We removed our shoes, lest we profane the sacred parameter of the temple, and rang one of the large brass bells hanging above the threshold to sonorously signify our passage. Our feet shuffled across the smooth white marble floor as we proceeded past a few shrines, a pool for washing and tiptoed up a wide marble staircase of about 8 steps. There was a middle-aged Indian couple on the raised platform who looked as though this visit was a brief jaunt on a journey elsewhere in the Punjabi plain. Otherwise, our only company was a few small birds twittering in the verdant trees.
In the center of the marble platform, the “Immortal Banyan Tree” protruded from the floor with an oval marble wall around the base. On one side of the oval wall, at eye level, there was a glass enclosure, about the size of a chest, also in white marble. This had an idol inside of Krishna the Charioteer and a marble sculpted pair of feet painted in red with icons of the mythical items that rose from the sea with the churning of the ocean. Above the enclosure, the adventitious roots and branches of the Banyan tree shaded the area, the latter hanging heavy with green leaves and brass bells tied with red yarn.
In fact, loops of yarn encircled many parts of the tree that were within arms’ reach, including a chain that was anchored at the base of the tree reaching to a bell far out of reach overhead. The chain was so thickly bearded with the yarn the individual links disappeared. The pieces of red yarn are tied by religious pilgrims. The pilgrims journey to the temple at Kuru, and other sites of hierophany, and make wishes. They pray as they wish and tie a piece of the red yarn. If the wish is granted by the deity, they are accountable for returning back to untie the yarn (and consequentially return to pay tribute).
Of course I tied a piece of my own —how could I not participate! It was interesting that I did not notice the specific knots or spots that the yarn was tied until I myself had to tie a piece. It would be natural to think that people would tie their strings in an obscure location so they could identify it later, but many more were tied right on top of each other—just as the individual links of the chain disappeared, so did the individual loops of yarn. I am still not sure whether the heavily-knotted yarn was tied by people who were asking for critical prayers to be answered, or if they were merely trying to give their yarn character lest they cannot identify which to cut.