A White Paper on Kangla and Sanamahi faith
- Part 2 -

H Dwijasekhar Sharma *

2. Sanamahism per se:

On an analytical plane it is consensually inferred that the Manipur polity is strategically identified with Lord Sanamahi and the associated Lord Pakhangba as the repository of all cosmological and supernatural powers so as to substantiate the legitimacy of all Manipuri kings.

As per tradition, the supernatural powers of Sanamahi were dispensed by Manipur kings to benefit their subjects. Thus from Sanamahi himself, as from the monarch, came the domain's prosperity (Ahong-Achao).

Contact with the supernatural did enhance Manipuri ruler's superior status and also legitimize the submission of adjacent population to the Manipuri monarch.

Sanamahi as the first and foremost cult existed all through the ancient history of Manipur. Records cite that the reign of Khagemba (1597-1652) was marked by the formal deification in 1601 AD of the traditional Meitei deity, Sanamahi as royal cult or state religion-a landmark in the religious history of Manipur-in loving memory of his first and most beloved son Sana Wapechan or Wapechan.

Accordingly Sanamahi was to be seen worshipped in a monumental fashion at various tiers as:

1. State or Royal God (1st Manipur Rifles Temple and Wangoi);
2. Presiding Deities at Thangjing, Marjing, Wangbren, Koubru etc.;
3. Companion God in various Umang Lai (sylvan deity) establishments;
4. Common Household Deity in every Meitei household;
5. Sun-God or temple-coin replica; and
6. Tantric God of Destruction (Sanamahi Apoiba).

A plausible explanation for king Khagemba's unusual supernatural role as God himself (rather than the divine King or one who rules as a representative of God) is rendered in terms of the unusual grief and utter shock he sustained on the death of his most beloved eight-year old son and the consequent aspiration (bordering on wild imagination) inhering in his mind to consign his own humanly or mortal soul in the humanly form of his son.

In his psychedelic state of mind he overinspired himself to project his departed son as his own embodiment in the world, while he could elevate himself to something more than what the divine-king theory cites.

As per sacred Meitei scripture, Sanamahi Laikan (Account of Sanamahi as the Guardian and Protector), the divine Sanamahi is also the Destroyer, for which aspect it has eulogised Sanamahi Apoiba (Sanamahi, the vagabond wanderer).

During its decline particularly since 1704, it did sustain losses-in terms of whatever official status and the consequent following gained by it since 1601 by dint of king Khagemba's edict-as the Sakta sect of Hindu Vaishnavite religion replaced it as the State religion under the auspices of the Vaishnavite-convert king Charairongba.

In fact, Sanamahi had its slide-back even thereafter, though by way of reaction the cult underwent a process of revival much later on during the last half of the twentieth century, just like the Hindu religion, it underwent a seemingly revival process upon growth of diverse practices (eg Buddhism and Jainism) and onslaught from Mohammedanism.

Even though Sanamahi religion lost its status as the State religion, it is extremely doubtful if any Meitei household inmate-including the king himself-ever stopped worshipping divine Sanamahi as the domestic or household deity lodged in the southwest corner of every traditional Meitei house for daily reverence by all inmates twice a day at sunrise and sundown; and very prominently in festivals and ceremonial occasions in the Sanamahi temple founded for the purpose by the king himself and as the companion god of the sylvan deities in Lai Haraoba.

In point of fact, the kings of Manipur exhibited definitive moderation and Buddhist universalism, through their well-evidenced Buddhist connection both in Manipur and towards the east in Burma mostly as also their exposure to the specific Hindu philosophy which admit of polytheism and multiculturalism.

Counterfactually speaking, it is surmised that they mightn't have even tolerated the surviving faith in the hill region, had they been 'self-centered' and 'culturally exclusive'. Because of this intrinsic sharing-in paradigm, they sustained close links with not only the (non-Hindu) hill groups as also belligerent Buddhist kings of Burma to the east and perhaps in league with the generous Hindu kings of present day Assam, Tripura, Nabadwip and beyond.

One can discern almost incontrovertible signs of an amalgam of Hindu and Meitei religions in the consensual acceptance by the Meitei nationhood of a blended or fused form of rites de passage, particularly in matters of marriage.

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* H Dwijasekhar Sharma wrote this article for The Sangai Express . This article was webcasted on October 29, 2008.

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