Ibudhou Oknarel and Macha Ibemma Khudithibi of Ningthoukhong

RK Birjit Singh
Contd from previous issue
The heart-breaking wail of the parent reverberate throughout the night at the hillock with  the insurmountable pain of the mother lamenting how she raised her during difficult times like any human mother.
Shielded from the icy gales from the west, ravaging rainstorms from the above and from the wild forest flames but all the hopes shattered and fallen apart like wasted fruits and withered flowers.
The time for separation came with bottomless misery as the sun started to wake up in the east and Ibudhou Oknarel consoled her daughter and pledged that no occasion will be celebrated without herand to come every year with a lot of food,fruits and other preferred items of his daughter and requested to wait for them at “Kabokthel”, a sacred serene meadow before reaching the Khudithibi hillock from Ningthoukhong.
Thus every year Ibudhouand Ibendhou together with AmaibasandAmaibis along with the disciples used to visit Khudithibi sitting on a palanquin carrying a lot of food items, fruits, flowers before the commencement of “Haraoba” and “HiyangTannaba” as invitation to join the respective ritualfestivals and MachaIbemmaKhudithibi used to wait eagerly the visit of her parents at Kabokthel during the period. The visit of IbudhouOknarel to Khudithibi is known as “Lai-Chingkaba”.
IbudhouOknarel went down to Ningthoukhong leaving his lovely daughter and resided amongst the brooks with his betrothed IbendhouKhunbungambi. Much later on, an epiphany from Ibudhou to one Pee-thadoi, believed to be the ancestors of present Moirangthem clan migrated from Moirang initiated the carving of the idol(Komai) of Ibudhou and Ibendhou and consecrated at the present sanctum-sanctorum in Ningthoukhong.
Thereafter, the rituals of “Lai Haraoba”, “Lai-PhouHunba”, Lai-chingkaba”and “HiyangTannaba” has been practised with much fanfare till now even though we could not ascertain correctly from which timethe rituals originally started.  In the early days, the temple of IbudhouOknarel was open for worshipping only to the members of the Royal family of the palace of Manipur during Saturday and Sundays.  Nobody have any idea about how IbudhouOknarel came to be associated with childless woman. 
Childless queens and princess of the palace thronged at the shrine of IbudhouOknarel during Saturday and Sunday to get blessing and last but not the least was M.K. Binodini Devi who conceived her first child after visiting the shrine spending desperately without child for many years after her marriage.
Still now hundreds of childless woman and devotees come from the different parts of thestate to the shrine to getblessing and to quench the thirst of having a child. Laiharaoba is an ancient Meetei fertility rite celebrating cosmic union between male and female principles and later it enlarged to incorporate cosmological and ideological categories of Meetei nation, assuming an intense complicated ritual theatre structure.
The historicity of Laiharaoba complex with an excellent exposition of dance depicting HakchangSagatpa (Making of somatic body), presence of serpent dragon dances, the simulation of the coils of the ancestor serpent dragon father Pakhangba, etc.  The songs and hymns of HijanHirao which began in early primitive times with the indigenous belief in the cosmic logic of union of the Sky  as Father and the Earth as Mother, an intense belief throughout  Asia and Southeast Asia.
Laiharaoba exploits the idea of nature as a vital force attributing the traditional feelings of Manipuri society towards and plants and animals and the nature as a whole.
It reveals the age-old tradition of protecting ecosystem. Obviously, worshipping and protection of nature are two different things.  But the basic fact is that our forefathers regarded the preservation of nature as ritual. One may say that it is paganism or tribal custom but they understood the umbilical cord attaching human to the non-human form of nature.
It is an act of communicating the nature with utmost admiration. They have always tried to live in harmony with nature.
Our hunt and greed for material achievement and quest for knowledge for development made us alienated from the root of the nature, the cradle of our existence and disconnects us from ecological realities.
* The earlier term “Iputhou” was now correctedto “Ibudhou”
The author is Asst. Professor, State Coordinator, Indian Bird Conservation Network (IBCN), Manipur. Honorary Wildlife Warden, Bishnupur District and member, Manipur Biodiversity Board(MBB), Govt. of Manipur