One of the most popular festivals of the State, Gumpha Yatra, commenced on Magha Ekadasi. The sleepy Olasuni hill woke up as thousands of devotees thronged the venue for the festival on February 4. The nine-day long Gumpha Yatra commemorates the death anniversary or Shradha Mahostav of the saint Arakhita Das.
Olasuni hill is located on the border of Cuttack and Jajpur districts, adjacent to famous Buddhist site lalitagiri beside the river Gobari. Th hill 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 Das.
According to a legend, saint Das, 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 Das who toured far and wide finally choose the Olasuni hill as his ‘sadhana pitha’. The saint with his spiritual powers is said to have ousted a virago, Olasuni Chandi, who then lived in the jungle.
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.
From commercial point of view, especially the stalls of stone engraved works of lalitagiri and Sukhuapada 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 a permanent road, electric power and water supply to the 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 their 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.