NOTES & REFERENCES:

• 1. Habermas's concept of 'lifeworld' refers to the taken-for-granted pre-theoretical stock of knowledge that is shared, yet constitutes a knowledge that forms and remains in the background, surviving so long as it exists in the background and is not brought to the foreground. See Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and Rationalization of Society, Vol. 1, (London: Heiniman Publication), 1984.
  
  
• 2. The ethnographic field of observation constitutes a neighbourhood in Imphal; the variant of the Lai Haraoba observed here is the Kanglei Haraoba.
  
  
• 3. Much like the Nuer term kwoth, lai is the Meitei term whose nearest English equivalent would subsume gods, spirits, and deities.
  
  
• 4. The terms sanskritization and Hinduisation have been used loosely here. In Srinivas's use of the term, sanskritization refers to the attempt at upward mobility by a lower caste through emulation of the culture of a higher caste as a reference point. See M.N. Srinivas, 'A note on Sanskritization and Westernization', Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 15, 1956, pp. 481–96.
  
  
• 5. In the Meitei experience, the change in values and lifestyles in accordance with a Sanskritic pattern is also associated with conversion to Hinduism (Vaishnavism). As such it need not necessarily be an attempt to upward mobility. However it remains that the imported religion was not open to everyone. The idea of 'mainstream' may be problematic but it cannot be refuted that such an idea exists in popular as well as national imagery. Instead of recognizing the multiplicity, a composite culture which implies homogenization is theorised (K.M. Chenoy, 'Nationalist Ideology, Militarism and Human Rights in Northeast', Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 3, Issue I, April–June, 2005). Moreover, Hinduism as it emerged in the present century began to equate itself unequivocally to Indian tradition at large. See V. Dalmia & H. von Steitencron (eds.), Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and Religious Identities, (New Delhi: Sage Publications), 1995.
  
  
• 6. Here we may bring to mind the view of time as a social construct. Every society has different notions of time. In an agrarian society, it is the agricultural cycle that decides the concept of time.
  
  
• 7. Umanglai etymologically means 'forest deity'.
  
  
• 8. Lairoi is the concluding part of the festival.
  
  
• 9. This follows the lines of Levi-Strauss' study of myth whereby there is no one true form of a particular myth but variations of the same may appear among different people. See C. Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, (London: The Penguin Press), 1963.
  
  
• 10. Originally 'Meitei' referred particularly to the Ningthouja clan who became the Meitei kings. Hence the other name of the Kanglei (from Kangla) variant is Meitei Lai Haraoba. Today, however, the term is used within the context of the conglomerate identity.
  
  
• 11. These are the words which mark the commencement of the "Hoi Laoba" song at the beginning of the rituals of the Laibou cycle that form an essential part of the daily observance of the Lai Haraoba rituals. This phrase has been variously interpreted as unintelligible words expressing happiness 'in coming out' [L.B. Singh, A Critical Study of the Religious Philosophy of the Meitei Before the Advent of Vaishnavism in Manipur, (Manipur: L. Momon Devi), 1987)] and as a call for physical intimacy [Parratt & Parratt, The Pleasing of the God: Meitei Lai Haraoba (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.), 1997].
  
  
• 12. Abridged from S.K. Chatterji, Kirata-jana-kriti: The Indo-Mongoloids, their Contribution to the History and Culture of India, (Calcutta: Calcutta Asiatic Society), 1974.
  
  
• 13. Discourse, here, is to be understood in its basic understanding as speech backed by power.
  
  
• 14. Parratt & Parratt, op. cit.
  
  
• 15. There is also a third view which takes the term as derived from lai ha laoba meaning the declaration of chak/time orders.
  
  
• 16. E.N. Singh, Manipuri Dance, (New Delhi: Omsons Publications), 1997.
  
  
• 17. J. Shakespeare, 'The pleasing of the god Thangjing', Man, Vol. XIII, No. 1, 1913, p. 112.
  
  
• 18. Rustom Bharucha, 'The shifting sites of secularism', Economic and Political Weekly, January 24, 1998.