Kurukshetra Kund

Kurukshetra Kund — known locally as Kurukshetra Pokhra — is one of Kashi's lesser-visited sacred water bodies, a large rectangular tank set in the leafy Bhelupur–Ravindrapuri quarter roughly midway between the Ganga and the more famous Durga Kund.

• In Varanasi's sacred geography every great pilgrimage place of India is believed to have a symbolic counterpart within the city, so that a devotee who cannot travel to distant tirthas may earn the same merit here.
• This pond stands for Kurukshetra in Haryana, the vast plain where the Mahabharata war was fought and where the Bhagavad Gita was spoken — a Dharmakshetra whose sanctity the kund quietly carries into the heart of Banaras.
• The tank owes its present form to Rani Bhavani of Natore, the celebrated Bengali zamindar-queen (c.
• 1716–1795) whose pilgrimage and long stay in Kashi during the 1750s left the city a legacy of restored temples, ghats and water tanks.
• Alongside the grand Durga Kund and pools on the Panchakroshi route, she is credited with patronising this Kurukshetra tank in the mid-18th century, making it pucca and channelling monsoon overflow so that surplus water ran from the Nawabganj basin into Durga Kund and onward through Kurukshetra Kund to the river.
• Being a natural pokhra rather than a stone-lined talab, its banks are earthier and less ornamented than its illustrious neighbours, which is precisely why it has stayed off the tourist circuit and kept an unhurried, residential calm.
• Today the kund is best appreciated as a contemplative pause on a walk between Assi Ghat and the Durga–Tulsi Manas temple cluster.
• A small shrine stands beside the water, and mornings bring local residents, a scatter of pilgrims and plenty of birdlife to the tank's edge.
• There is no ticket counter and no crowd management — simply a still sheet of water framed by old trees and neighbourhood rooftops, at its loveliest just after the monsoon when the tank brims and again in the soft light of a winter dawn.
• For vegetarian travellers this corner of Varanasi is a delight and poses no dietary worry, as Kashi's food culture is overwhelmingly meat-free by tradition.
• The nearby Sonarpura–Assi stretch is dotted with pure-vegetarian sweet shops and thali houses: Ksheer Sagar at Sonarpura is the closest reliable stop for rabri, kalakand and clean thalis, while a short auto ride toward Godowlia reaches Keshari Restaurant for South-Indian and North-Indian vegetarian meals and Rajbandhu in Kachori Gali for the classic Banarasi kachori-sabzi breakfast.
• One honest caution: this is thandai country, and some lassi and thandai stalls near the ghats add bhang (cannabis) — always ask specifically for plain lassi or plain thandai without bhang so your drink stays family-friendly.