Sanamahism

Sanamahism is the ethnic religion of the Meitei people of the Imphal valley in Kangleipak, later Manipur. It takes its name from Lainingthou Sanamahi, the eldest son of the supreme god Sidaba Mapu, and the court chronicle Cheitharol Kumbaba traces it back to King Pakhangba.

The faith is polytheistic. Its chief deities include Sanamahi, Sidaba Mapu, Pakhangba and the wealth goddess Imoinu, while the umang lai, gods of the sacred groves, are honored at the Lai Haraoba festival. Every house kept a leipung, a mound in the courtyard that stood for the first land of creation.

In the early eighteenth century Hindu priests from Sylhet won King Pamheiba over to Vaishnavism. He made Hinduism the state religion in 1717, and in 1729 brought nearly all the Meitei into it. Sanamahi nonetheless stayed a household god.