With the onset of Magha Ekadasi, sleepy hill Olasuni comes alive offering a plethora of devotional and cultural activities. Thousands of devotees from far and wide throng here to participate in the cave festival (Gumpha Yatra) and get the blessing of saint Arakhita Das. The Olasuni hill, which is situated adjacent to famous Buddhist site lalitagiri beside the river Gobari, has a cave at its pedestal where Goddess Olasuni is worshipped and a temple at the top of the hill housing the holy tomb of saint Arakhita Das. The cave festival is celebrated to commemorate the death anniversary of or Shradha Mahotsav of the saint who lived here about 200 years ago.
According to a legend, Saint Arakhita, earlier known as Balabhadradev, was born in the Badakhemundi royal family of Ganjam. At the age of 15 years, he renounced worldly pleasure and left home to stay with Sadhus for spiritual meditation. The name “Arakhita” was given to him by a widow who mistook him for a thief while he was collecting banana leaves from her garden.
Saint Arakhita toured far and wide and finally chose the Olasuni hill as his ‘sadhana pitha’. At that time, the hill was full of forests and in fear of the Olasuni Chandi, a virago who was believed to live there, people hardly visited the hill. legend has it that the saint with his spiritual power had ousted the virago who then continued to live in the cave at the pedestal of the hill.
After his death in 1833, his samadhi pitha became a holy shrine. His disciples follow the idealism of ‘Abadhuta bada’, where devotees irrespective of caste, creed and religion offer ‘Podapitha’ (a kind of cake), ‘Sukhua’ (dry fish) and ‘Somarasa’(wine) as samarpana Bhoga at the shrine for the fulfillment of their desire. ‘Kanjipani’, a kind of soup made from rice gruel, is the most popular Bhoga at the shrine. People come to the shrine to get a handful of the Kanjipani as they believe that it has some medicinal properties, which even can cure some incurable diseases.
Although the traditional festival is celebrated for a day, both from tourist and commercial points of view, the fair continues for a week and especially the stalls of stone engraved works of lalitagiri and Sukhuapada even remain opened for more than a fortnight. To boost the tourist potentiality of the spot, the State Government besides setting up a guest house and park, has also provided permanent road, electric power and water supply to Olasuni hill.
However, the festival is no longer the same what it used to be for the sake of “Abadhutabada”. The place is turning into a haunt especially for the youth society where they can make merry by consuming liquor, Bhang and smoking Ganja openly in the festival. Besides, the traditional Bhajan (devotional songs) and Kirtan (music) are fast losing its originality at the hill. Instead modern melody, opera troupe programme and thousands of business stalls at the pedestal of the hill are reducing the festival to a commercial fair.
