A King's Dream and the Dance It Is Said to Have Given Manipur

Manipuri tradition credits the introduction of Ras Lila, the dance drama built around Krishna and Radha that has since become the region's most recognized devotional art form, to a specific act of royal patronage. Rajarshi Bhagyachandra, who ruled Manipur in the late eighteenth century as Vaishnavism was consolidating as the kingdom's court religion, is said to have received a vision instructing him in the dance's choreography and staged its first performance himself at the Govindaji temple in Imphal, giving Ras Lila an origin story that ties a living performing tradition directly to the same royal conversion that made Vaishnavism the valley's dominant faith.

The dance did not replace what came before it so much as sit beside it, performed alongside, not instead of, the older Lai Haraoba festival honoring the umang lai grove deities, and both survive today as distinct living traditions of the same valley. The twentieth century Sanamahi revival movement drew on that same continuity, arguing that Sanamahism had never actually disappeared beneath the court's Vaishnava turn but had persisted in the villages throughout, a claim its supporters point to the unbroken observance of Lai Haraoba itself as evidence for.