The treatise written by Manu, the lawgiver
in Indian mythology, designated Haryana as Brahmavart from where the Brahmanical
religion and social system grew up and spread outwards to the rest of the country.
In a sense, therefore, one can say that much of the Hindu religion and society
was formed on the flat, dry plains of the present-day Haryana.
In the epic of the Mahabharata, it was at Kurukshetra, during a battle between
that Kaurava and Pandava princes that Lord Krishna delivered one of his most
important messages through the celestial sermon-the Geeta.
With Delhi as the prize awaiting generations of invaders, Haryana served as
a sort of a geographical corridor. Over the centuries, waves of invaders poured
across the plains of Haryana, sometimes fighting battles there. At the end of
the 14th century, Timur led an army through the state towards Delhi. In 1526,
the invading Mughals defeated the armies of the ruling Lodi dynasty at the Battle
of Panipat and 30 years later, in 1556, the Mughals won yet another decisive
battle there.
By the mid-18th century, the Marathas were in control of Haryana, an era that
was brought to an end after the Afghans under Ahmed Shah Abdali defeated the
Maratha forces in the third battle of Panipat in 1761.
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