Shree Shree Govindajee Temple (Govindaji Temple)

The present Govindaji temple building was commissioned in 1846 by Maharaja Nara Singh, damaged in an 1868 earthquake, and rebuilt in its current form, with its twin gold-plated domes, consecrated in 1876 under Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh. It stands immediately beside the old royal palace in Imphal, reflecting its origin as the Manipuri kings’ own household shrine before it became the state’s central Vaishnava temple. During the 1891 Anglo-Manipur War the deities were removed for safekeeping and were not reinstalled until 1908; the temple’s gold plating was most recently redone in 2012-2013.

The worship of Govindaji at this site is inseparable from Maharaja Bhagyachandra (also called Jai Singh, r. 1763-1798), who is credited by tradition with carving the original Govindaji image from a jackfruit tree after a divine vision, consecrating it in 1779. Bhagyachandra’s reign is also remembered as the period when Vaishnavism, already introduced to Manipur a century earlier, became deeply woven into Manipuri court and civic life, giving rise to the classical Ras Lila dance form performed at the temple to this day during Holi and Kartik Purnima. The sanctum today houses Radha-Govindaji alongside Jagannath, Balarama and Subhadra in adjoining chambers, making the temple both a Krishna-Vaishnava shrine and a living center of Manipuri Vaishnavism’s distinct devotional and performing-arts tradition.