Raghu Arakhita was a great devotee of Lord Jagannath. Reference to this devotee occurs in Madalapanji, the chronicle of the temple of Lord Jagannath, and in a few other ancient literary works. It is probable that he lived during the reign of Prataprudra Deb (1497-1540), the Gajapati king of Orissa, and was perhaps a contemporary of Sri Chaitanya. Rama Das (18th c.) in his Dadhyata bhakti, a popular biographical work in verse, has elaborately written about the life of this devotee.

He was born to rich parents in a village situated on the north-eastern border of Orissa adjacent to Bengal. He was married when yet a boy. He lost his parents and fortune early and became a destitute. For this he was known as Raghu Arakhita, i.e. Raghu, the destitute. He left his ancestral house, became a Vaishnava sanyasi and went to Puri, where he lived almost as a beggar. The later part of the story narrates how Raghu Arakhita, by the grace of Lord Jagannath, was re-united with his wife, and how they both lived in a monastery at Puri leading a life of dedication to the Lord.

Except a few small poetical compositions, very few literary works of this Vaishnava poet have so far come to light. There are two ‘chautisas’, that is, typical poetical compositions of thirty-four stanzas written according to the Oriya alphabetic sequence of consonants, beginning from ‘ka’ to ‘kshya’. These two chautisas are Shakuntala chautisa and Jnana ude chautisa.

The former deals with the romantic episode of Dusmanta and Shakuntala, and the latter is a philosophic discourse. In addition, he wrote Gochar sidhi Gita and a number of devotional and lyrical compositions on the Radha-Krishna theme. The language is simple and the compositions are musical and full of the poet’s intensity of love and devotion.He wrote such type of bibliography like K.C. Sahu, Prachin kavya dhara (Cuttack); Rama Das, Dadhyata bhakti; Sachidanand Mishra, Chautisa bichitra.

Shakuntala Chautisa
Jnana Ude Chautisa
Gochar Sidhi Gita