THANESWAR, a sacred town and place of Hindu pilgrimage in the Umballa district of the Panjab, situated on the bank of the river Saras wati (Sarsuti), in lat. 29° 58' 30" N., and long. 76° 52' E., 25 miles soutla of Timballa. Population (1868), 7929.
Thaneswar or Sthaneswara is said to be derived either from the Sthana. or abode of Iswara, or from the junction of his names of Sthanu and Iswara, or, from Sthanu and Sar, a lake. The town is one of the oldest and most celebrated places in India, but the earliest certain notice of it under this name is by the Chinese pilgrim Hiwen Thsang, in A.D. 634, although it is most probably mentioned by Ptolemy as Batan-ka-isara, for v.,hich we should perhaps read Satan-aisara for the Sanskrit Sthaneswara. But the place was more famous for its connection with the history of the Pandus, than for its possession of a temple of Mahadeva, whose worship, in India at least, must be of much later date than the heroes of the Mahabharata. All the country immediately around Thaneswar, between the Saraswati and Drishadwati rivers, is known by the name of Kuru-kshetra, that is, the field or land of Kuru,' who is said to have become an ascetic on the bank of the great holy lake to the south of the town. This lake is called by various names, as Brahma-sar, Rama hrad, Vaya, or Vayava-sar, and Pavana-sar. The first name is attributed to Brahma, because he performed a sacrifice on its banks. The second name is derived from Parasu Rama, who is said to have spilt the blood of the Kshatriyas in this place. The last two titles are derived front the names of the god of Wind, on account of the pleasant breezes which blew over the waters of the lake during Kuru's period of asceticism. This lake is the centre of attraction for most pilgrims ; but all around it for many miles is holy ground, and the number of holy places connected with the Kaurava and Pandava, and with other heroes of antiquity, is very great indeed ; but the list given in the Kuru-kshetra Mahatyma is limited to 180 places, of which one-half, or 91, are to the north along the line of the venerated Saraswati river.
Puranic legends attribute to it an antiquity long anterior even to the Pandus themselves. On its banks, Kuru, the common ancestor of the Kaurava and Pandava, sat in ascetic abstraction ; here Parasu Rama slew the Kshatriyas, and here Pururavas, having lost the nymph Urvasi, at length met his celestial bride at Kuru-kshetra, sporting with four other nymphs of heaven in a, lake beautiful with lotuses.' And a story of the horse - headed Dadhyanch or Dadhicha is per haps even older than the legend of Pururavas, as it is alluded to in the Rig Veda : With his bones Indra slew ninety times nine Vritras.' In A.D. 1011, its temple was sacked by Mahmud.
The sacred lake, a pool of the Saraswati (Sarsuti), forms an oblong sheet of water, 3549 feet in length 'and 1900 feet in breadth. During eclipses of the moon, the waters of all other tanks are believed to visit this tank at Thaneswar; so that he who then bathes in the assembled water, obtains the consecrated merit of all possible ablutions. The country for many miles around is holy ground, and popular estimate sets down the number of sacred sites connected with the Kaurava and Pandava, at 360. At all seasons of the year, a continuous stream of pilgrims pours towards the shrines of Thaneswar and the Kuru-kshetra. The number of visitors at the great festival formerly amounted to 500,000, but had dwindled away in 1872 to 30,000.—Beng. As. Soc. Journ. xxii. p. 673 ; Cunninghanes Geog. India, pp. 330, 335.