Shaphee Lanphee
A black Manipuri shawl with red borders, embroidered by hand with animals, sun and stars
Shaphee Lanphee is a handwoven and hand-embroidered cloth of Manipur, in northeast India, worked mostly by Meitei women and worn as a shawl. Cotton thread is stitched over a black ground with a red border, and the motifs, from elephants and horses to sun, moon and stars, follow a fixed sequence.
- Registered as a Geographical Indication on 19 December 2011, application 371, Class 25
- Black ground, red border, motifs stitched in cotton thread by hand
- Woven on a loin and frame loom, then embroidered without a frame
- About 110 to 132 cm wide, 225 to 230 cm long, and 1,854 g in weight
- Once given by the king of Manipur as Mana Phee, a gift of honour
What is Shaphee Lanphee?
Shaphee Lanphee is a cloth of Manipur, in India's northeast, woven on a handloom and then embroidered with a needle. The makers are mostly Meitei women. Worn as a shawl, it is a long rectangle, roughly 2.25 to 2.3 metres from end to end and 1.1 to 1.3 metres across, and it weighs around 1.85 kilograms. The ground is black, the border red, and the stitching carries animals, heavenly bodies and royal signs in cotton thread. It is valued for what those motifs stand for as much as for how it looks.
Where does Shaphee Lanphee come from?
Shaphee is explained as the cloth of the animal and of war. Weaving it belonged to a single family, the Khoisnam lineage, and a manuscript known as the Loiyumba Silyen records that King Loiyumba, ruler from 1074 to 1122, granted that family the right to make it. One story says the king noticed a Khoisnam man riding a horse in such a cloth and took it up as a way of honouring brave Naga chiefs. The 20th century revival is credited to Maisnam Lalini Devi, a weaver of Wangkhei Yonglan. Keinahanbi, her mother, and another daughter of the family, Maisnam Anita, each received a state award in 1992 for promoting the cloth; Lalini was named Master Crafts Person in 2009.
How is Shaphee Lanphee made?
The yarn starts as local fibre. Cotton comes from the cotton ball, silk from the mulberry cocoon, and more fibre is taken from the bark of a tree the sources call Santhak. It is spun into thread, dyed with plants and bark, stiffened with a starch made from rice, stretched along a bamboo rod and wound onto bobbins. Weaving is done on a loin and frame loom, cotton forming the lengthwise warp while the crossing weft mixes cotton with acrylic. Once the cloth is off the loom the motifs go on by hand, needle worked, with no frame, in a set order.
Shaphee Lanphee, drawn
Colours, motifs and borders
The base is a black cloth finished with a red border. Animals and sky signs fill the embroidered field: elephant, horse, buffalo horn, peacock, fish, sun, moon, star, and a magical seat beside spear heads. Nothing is placed at random; each sign has its turn in a fixed sequence. Red at the centre reads as the sun, the white strips along the two edges as sky and stars, and sun and moon as father and mother. Elephant and magical seat belong to royalty, spear and fish to the myths of King Naothingkhong.
How Shaphee Lanphee is worn
It is a shawl rather than a stitched garment. The woven panel is a flat rectangle, 225 to 230 centimetres long and 110 to 132 centimetres wide, draped over the shoulders and arranged by the wearer so that it covers the upper body and falls down the back and arms. Nothing is cut or sewn to shape it. In the past its most formal use was not as dress at all: it was laid on a soldier or a chief as a mark of honour.
When Shaphee Lanphee is worn
The cloth once belonged to the court. Manipur's king gave it to men who had fought well and to chiefs of the region's indigenous peoples, among them Tangkhul, Meitei and Rongmei, and in that role it was called Mana Phee, a gift of honour. Its motifs also give it religious weight, so it is kept and handled with care. Today it is made across Manipur and worn as a shawl.
Styles of Shaphee Lanphee
Silk thread sometimes replaces cotton in the embroidery. Two companion cloths of Manipur, Wangkhei Phee and Moirang Phee, were registered at the same time, each under its own number. The sources do not describe imitations or powerloom versions. What they do describe is a check on quality: an inspection agency of nine members, drawn from government departments, societies and master craftsmen, was set up after registration to oversee what weavers produce.
What Shaphee Lanphee means
The Geographical Indication locks the name to Manipur. Registration came on 19 December 2011, under the 1999 act, in Class 25 for clothing, on application 371, and the state was expected to enrol a thousand weavers within six months of it. What the cloth means rests on its motifs: sky, stars, sun and moon above, signs of kingship below, which is why it could serve as a reward for bravery. Its return in the last century came through one weaving family's work.
Questions people ask about Shaphee Lanphee
Where does Shaphee Lanphee come from?
It comes from Manipur, in northeast India. Meitei women there weave and embroider it, and it is now made across the state. A Geographical Indication registered in 2011 ties the name to Manipur, so cloth sold under this name is meant to be made there.
How is Shaphee Lanphee made?
Local cotton, some silk and tree-bark fibre are spun, dyed with plants and bark, sized with rice starch and wound onto bobbins. The cloth is woven on a loin and frame loom. The pattern is then embroidered by hand with a needle, without a frame, in a fixed sequence.
Is it a saree?
The sources describe it as a textile fabric, usually a shawl, not a saree. It is a woven rectangle draped over the shoulders, with no pallu described and no saree drape. It shares a handloom origin and a regional identity with sarees, but it is a different kind of cloth.
What does the word Shaphee mean?
The sources gloss Shaphee as the cloth of animal and war, a fitting name for something once given to soldiers and to chiefs for bravery. The embroidered animals, sun, moon and stars carry that meaning.
Who brought the craft back?
Maisnam Lalini Devi, a weaver from Wangkhei Yonglan, is credited with reviving it in the 20th century. Her mother Keinahanbi and her sister Maisnam Anita each won a state award in 1992 for promoting the craft, and Lalini received a Master Crafts Person award in 2009.
Good reading and sources
The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Shaphee lanphee", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryPallu rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
It may contain mistakes. Traditions, weaves and prices differ from one weaver, town or shop to the next, and it is not buying advice. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-30.
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