Laishang[1][2][3]or Laisang[4] or Khubam or Ebudhou Ebendhou Khubam[a] is a shrine to a specific deity or ancestor in Sanamahism. These structures also serve very important role in Lai Haraoba ceremony. The usual annual Lai Haraoba ceremonies of various Umang Lai (forest deities) are performed inside Laisang of these Umang-lai (deities of the forest or jungle)[5]
The Lai Haraoba, the 'pleasing of the gods', is a pre-Hindu festival said to be at the 'heart' of Meitei culture and worldview (Parratt and Parratt, 1997: xiv). The festival involves dance, music, oral poetry, flowers and other offerings, and spirit mediums that channel lai – female and male deities that are sacred and numinous...I was invited to attend a neighbourhood Lai Haraoba with my friend Anya and her family at Ima Khunthokhanbi Shanglen, a laishang (temple) on the edge of the DM College campus close to the centre of the city
These processions all converge on the Lai-sang of Thangjing and the gods and goddesses or their emblems are taken from the litters and carried _ inside the Lai-sang (god's house) and placed beside Thangjing.
There are the Lam Lai, gods of the country side, who shade off into nature gods controlling the rain, the primal necessity of an agricultural community ; Umang Lai, or deities of the forest jungle; the Imung Lai, lords of the lives, the births, and the deaths of individuals: there are the tribal ancestors, the ritual of whose cult is a strange compound of magic and 'nature worship.
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