Raghurajpur-Centre of Odissi traditional art

Recently I visited Odisha with my friends. We had a memorable trip, thanks to the excellent arrangement done by Odisha tourism.

We were cautioned by my friends that Puri Jagannath temple is infested with pestering pundits. But Odisha tourism had arranged with the head priest of the temple. We (8 members) had no problem in having the darshan of the Lord. We spent more than 20 minutes in the sanctum sanctorum. They also showed us the great kitchen, containing nearly 600 chulas, for the preparation of prasadam. Puri is considered to be the Bhog place for Lord. There is no offering of prasadam by individuals here, but can contribute for the bhog in the temple. We were given lots of Khaja (sweet prasadam) from the temple.

 While going to Bhubaneswar from Puri, we had the opportunity of visiting Raghurajpur, the village that is still preserving the traditional odissi art of palm leaf painting. Our driver took us to the house of master craftsman. He demonstrated to us the art of drawing on palm leaf. He took less than a minute to draw the image of Ganesha.

Then he applied black dye prepared from some leaf. He told that this dye is water- resistant and the picture on the palm leaf can be wiped with wet cloth. There were a number of paintings on palm leaves, which are stitched together and can be folded. He was teaching this art to some students. He also paints on tussar silk cloth and the dyes for this are made from various coloured rocks available in that region. We all purchased few art pieces.

 Anyone visiting Puri, should visit Raghurajpur