Place · Mahābhārata tirtha · India
Jyotisar, Kurukshetra
Also known as Jyotisar, Jyotishwar Tirtha, Gita Sthal
The banyan under which Krishna is said to have delivered the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna before the Mahabharata battle began, on the western edge of the Kurukshetra tirtha-cluster. The present tree is said to be a cutting-descendant of the original; a 1960s marble pavilion houses the figure of Krishna in the chariot. Jyotisar is the most-visited of the Kurukshetra sacred sites alongside Brahma Sarovar and Sannihit Sarovar, and the annual Gita Jayanti Mahotsav in Margashirsha is centred here.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Standard reference and local gazetteers; ASI, state archaeology and INTACH records where applicable.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 29.963, 76.809
Connections (1)
- Site withinKurukshetra
Jyotisar sits on the western edge of the Kurukshetra tirtha-cluster, where the Mahabharata battle landscape stretches across sixty kilometres of Haryana. The banyan where Krishna is said to have delivered the Gita to Arjuna is one of the forty-eight tirthas Kurukshetra tradition reckons within the sacred geography, and the annual Gita Jayanti procession walks between Jyotisar and the Brahma Sarovar at Thanesar — the whole landscape read as one event rather than many separate sites.