Lainingthou Sanamahi Kiyong

The shrine on Nongmaiching mountain, east of Imphal, is where Sanamahism gathers: a temple to Lainingthou Sanamahi and the central body of the Sanamahi Lainingkol, the university of Sanamahi culture. Pilgrims come from well beyond the state, Meitei families settled across the Northeast and Kabui and Zeliangrong people from Assam, Tripura, Myanmar and Bangladesh. If Imphal's Vaishnava temples are all you have seen, this is the traditional Meitei religion instead, and a centre of it rather than a curiosity. Worth the trip out of the city rather than a stop squeezed into an afternoon.