Leimarel Sidabi

Also Known As: also Leimalel Sitapi, Leimaren, Ima Leimaren; another name is Malem Leima, and the element *sidabi* carries the sense of one who does not die
Region/Culture: South Asia
Mythos: Meitei Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: She is the earth itself and the highest female power in the Meitei pantheon, holding within her the goddesses of harvest, water, salt, thunder and wealth as her own further forms.
Role in Mythos: She is the mother from whose womb living things are said to have come, and the household goddess who sits beside Sanamahi in the sacred corner of every traditional Meitei house.
Relation to Humans: Every Meitei household keeps her, and a senior woman of the house fills her water pot after bathing and lays out flowers, fruit, vegetables and rice for the protection of the family. Prayers go to her and to Sanamahi before bed, before leaving the house and on returning to it, which makes her less a distant deity than a permanent resident.

Before the first light reaches the courtyard, a woman in a Manipuri house bathes, then carries clean water across the floor to a corner that never takes the sun. The pot waiting there is plain fired clay, unglazed, cool against the palm. She fills it, sets flowers and a little rice beside it, and that is the whole of it. Nothing in the corner has a face. The goddess of the earth is the water in the pot.

She is Leimarel Sidabi, and in the Meitei religion of Manipur she stands above every other goddess. Earth, nature, household: the three domains run together in her, and the tellings go further and call her the mother of every living being in the universe. Her name carries the sense of a lady who does not die, which is a large claim for a figure honoured mostly in kitchens and shadowed corners. She also answers to Malem Leima, and in ordinary speech to Ima Leimaren, mother Leimaren, the way you would name a relative.

The accounts of where she came from are brief and slightly at odds with one another. In one, the supreme creator Atiya Sidaba, also called Atingkok Maru Sidaba, brought her out of the left side of his own body so that mankind could be established. The sky is her partner in the older cosmology, named Salailen or Soraren, and the pairing of ground and sky gives the Meitei world its shape. What no telling supplies is a birth scene, a childhood, or any moment in which she was not already the earth. She arrives complete.

The story she is best remembered inside is not her own. Atiya Sidaba set his sons a race around the universe, the throne of the world going to whichever finished first. Sanamahi was the stronger and set off at once. His younger brother Pakhangba, who had no hope of winning on his legs, went weeping to his mother, and she told him the thing nobody else had thought to say: to circle the seat of the Supreme Being is to circle the whole of creation. He walked a ring around his father and sat down on the throne.

Sanamahi came home to find the race already over. He went for his brother, and Pakhangba fled and hid himself among seven celestial maidens, which is where that version leaves the matter. The settlement afterwards is the part that still governs Manipuri houses: Pakhangba took the world and the royal line traced itself from him, while Sanamahi was given the southwestern corner of every household in Manipur and became king of the domestic interior. Leimarel is enshrined at his left. She is his foster mother and Pakhangba’s own, and the arrangement in that corner is a family one before it is a theological one.

She also makes goddesses. Told by Atiya Sidaba to produce another divinity to look after human beings, she brought out Emoinu, who took the hearth and the wealth of the house. The same logic runs much further than Emoinu. Phouoibi in the paddy, Ngaleima among the fish, Thumleima in the salt, Nongthang Leima in thunder and rain, Panthoibi in courage and war, Silleima in work: the crowded ranks of Meitei goddesses are counted as forms she puts on to do particular jobs. It is an unusual arrangement. Most pantheons grow sideways, by marriage and quarrel. This one grows out of a single mother.

No one has ever drawn her. There is no image inside the household shrine, and the absence is deliberate rather than accidental, since the pot is not a stand-in for a statue that ought to be there. The pot is the point. It is called the isaiphu, and she is understood to live in the water it holds, which is why the offering is water first and everything else second. One account of the Loi villages adds a small domestic detail that says more than a description would: their houses are built facing south, because she has no love of the morning sunlight.

The written record of her is scattered across the puyas, the hand-copied Meitei manuscripts, in texts whose very titles are hers: the Leimaren Naoyom, the Leimaren Langon, the Leimaren Mingkhei, the Leimaren Shekning Lasat, the Leimaren Ungoiron. The maibas, the traditional priests, chant hymns and make offerings to her. Among the nine rhythms of the pena, the single-string fiddle whose sound saws through every Lai Haraoba, one is the Leimarel sheisak and belongs to her alone. At Sajibu Cheiraoba, the Meitei new year, she is given uncooked rice. At Mera Chaorel Houba she is worshipped with fruit and vegetables at the Sanamahi Temple.

Her reach is wider than the valley. She is kept by Meitei communities in Assam, Tripura, Bangladesh and Myanmar, where a shrine to Ema Leimarel Sidabi stands at the village of Ye Ki Bauk. In Imphal, complex number one of the Ima Keithel, the mothers’ market, carries her name, and legend has it that Ima Leimaren took charge of the market herself to keep peace in it, with the women who trade there counted as her descendants.

Her power is the ordinary, unglamorous kind: growth, fertility, the continuance of a family, protection from the mess of small disasters that ruin a household. She does not smite. In the one myth where everything is at stake she does not fight at all, she gives advice, and the advice wins. What she cannot do is operate unattended. Her authority depends on daily maintenance, on the water being changed, the offerings laid, the prayers said at the right hinges of the day, and she is bound to a corner of a room in a way that no sky god ever is. When Pamheiba turned the kingdom to Hinduism in the eighteenth century and pressed the point hard, the public face of her religion went under. The household did not. The pot went on being filled in the corner where nobody official was looking, which is the least dramatic form of survival and, on the evidence, the most effective.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Leimarel Sidabi?

Leimarel Sidabi is the supreme goddess of the earth, nature and the household in Meitei religion, the indigenous faith of Manipur in northeast India. She is the highest female divinity in the pantheon and is described as the mother of every living being. She is also called Leimalel Sitapi, Leimaren, Malem Leima and, familiarly, Ima Leimaren.

How is Leimarel Sidabi worshipped?

She is worshipped without an image, in the form of fresh water held in an unglazed earthen pot called the isaiphu, kept in the sacred corner of the house beside the god Sanamahi. A senior woman of the household fills the pot with clean water after bathing and offers flowers, fruit, vegetables and rice. Prayers are made to her and Sanamahi before sleeping, before leaving the house and on returning.

Who are Leimarel Sidabi’s children?

Pakhangba, the serpent king from whom the Manipuri royal line traced its descent, is her own son, and Sanamahi, the guardian of every household, is her foster son. She also produced the goddess Emoinu at the direction of the creator Atiya Sidaba, to look after humankind.

What is Leimarel Sidabi’s role in the race between Sanamahi and Pakhangba?

When the creator set his sons to race around the universe for the throne of the world, Pakhangba came to his mother Leimarel Sidabi for help, and she told him that circling the seat of the Supreme Being was the same as circling all of creation. He walked around his father and took the throne. Sanamahi, who had run the actual distance, was given rule over every household instead.

Why are so many Meitei goddesses called forms of Leimarel Sidabi?

Meitei tradition treats the goddesses of specific domains as incarnations of Leimarel Sidabi rather than as separate divinities. Phouoibi in the paddy, Ngaleima among the fish, Thumleima in salt, Nongthang Leima in thunder and rain, Panthoibi in war and courage, and Emoinu at the hearth are all counted as her forms. The pantheon of goddesses is understood to unfold from one mother.