Any history of Manipur must necessarily begin by stating that the present name by which the state is known is a fairly recent coinage. A few decades prior to the 1789 French Revolution, the state was known to its neighbouring kingdoms and regions both in India and Burma by a diversity of names. Numerous 18th century reports by British officers describe it as Mecklay; the Ahoms called it Makeli, the old Assamese name was Moglan, and for the Cacharis it became
Any history of Manipur must necessarily begin by stating that the present name by which the state is known is a fairly recent coinage. A few decades prior to the 1789 French Revolution, the state was known to its neighbouring kingdoms and regions both in India and Burma by a diversity of names. Numerous 18th century reports by British officers describe it as Mecklay; the Ahoms called it Makeli, the old Assamese name was Moglan, and for the Cacharis it became Magli. For the neighbours to its east, Manipur was called Kasse by the Shans, and Ka-the by the Burmese.
The state is a natural labyrinth between hill ranges, with the exception of the Imphal valley that forms a vast plain which has been the stage of civilisation and conflict for millennia. Located at a crossroad between Indo-China and the Indian mainland, Manipur’s ethnic pool owes its diversity to the waves of human migrations that have left their traces. It would then be unwise to claim unquestionable autochthony by either the hill tribes or those in the valley.
The Meiteis or Maithai are one of the four old tribes living in the plains, converting to Hindu-Vaishnavism just before the arrival of the British in the 18th century. The hill tribes are the Kukis and Nagas, these are appeallations names given by outsiders. British accounts such as those by Major James Rennell and the 1886 Gazetteer by Captain E W Dun do not rise above colonial documentary practice of reliance on elite informers, and racist description of regions, customs and tribes.
Tracing early history
Prior to the 8th century, references to Manipur can only be found in epic Mahabharata and Puranic literature, both of which cannot be relied on for reconstructing the state’s past accurately.
The Poireiton Khunthokpa, recognised as being amongst the most ancient Meitei manuscripts, which scholars have dated to the third century CE “describes the colonisation of the valley by a band of people from the ‘land of death’ under Poireiton. They first established their colony near Langol Hill.... Before the arrival of this colonizing party, the land was inhabited by some people who were no better than the beasts of the forests, who did not know even the use of fire or of any iron implement. It was this band of colonists from the land of death that brought civilization to this valley”, writes Jyotirmoy Roy in his seminal work, The History of Manipur. Poireiton is a mythological prince and brother of the God of death in Sanahamism, the indigenous religion of Meiteis.
Numismatic evidence takes the recorded history of Imphal valley back to 3rd CE. Around this time, the sport of Sagol Kangjei or Polo finds mention in the royal chronicle Chaitharol-Kumbaba. Coins were also issued by Maranba (1256 A.D.) Khagemba, Paikhomba (1666 A.D.), and Charairongba (1697 A.D.). “Among the coins collected in Manipur by W. Yumjao Singh (historian), four pieces belong to the second century A.D. The discovery of these coins also indicates that there were trade relations between Manipur and India even in that old period. Accounts of Hiuen Tsang and Kamekshya Tantra refer that Manipur was once a part of the kingdom of Kamarupa,” Roy wrote.
During these centuries there was constant warfare between the plains-dwelling Meiteis and Burmese rulers. Roy wrote: “According to the Shan chronicles, the brother of a king of Mungman who ascended the throne in 1220 CE gained several notable victories in Upper Assam, where he defeated the Chutiyas, as well as the people in Arakan, Manipur and other countries. A section of the Ahoms occupied the northern and eastern hill tracts of upper Burma and western Yunnan, where they formed a group of states. The most important of them, called Mungman, was known to the Manipuris as Pong. The chronicles of Ava and Shan, local literature and customs indicate the invasion of Manipur by the rulers of Ava and Pong. But history has no record of these invasions till the 18th century.”
It is believed that in 1250 CE a Chinese invasion of Manipur ended in abject defeat, the prisoners were allowed to settle at Susa Kameng, a village on the road to Dimapur. It was these prisoners who introduced silk-weaving, brickwork, and wooden block printing in Manipur. Today, they are a forgotten and disappearing community.
However, there is disagreement over the date of this Chinese invasion. Bijoy Panchali, a Hinduised text on Meitei traditions, gives the date as 1564, while TC Hodson, a British political Agent (asst.) who was posted at Imphal stated that the invasion occurred in 1630 CE.
From Pamheiba to Gharib Nawaz to Gopal Singh
The death of Emperor Aurangzeb (1707) is a significant marker in Indian history as it directly and sometimes indirectly precipitated the rise of small states all over the subcontinent. In the case of Manipur, it coincides with the coronation of Pamheiba (1709) a prince whose parentage and upbringing remains shrouded in myths and legends.
One narrative claimed that Pamheiba was brought up by a Naga chief, and that at his coronation he adorned a Naga robe. According to the 18th century text, Bijoy Panchali, Pamheiba’s popular title, Gharib Nawaz derives from “Karigumba Nawa”, which means the enthronement of a prince who was once lost.
Under the influence of his father’s religious guru, Shantidas Adhikari, a Vaishnava missionary of fortune, Pamheiba adopted Hindu religion as the state religion leading to conversion of all Meiteis from their indigenous religion Sanahmism to vegetarian Vaishnavism. He also took the Sanskrit name of Gopal Singh, and rechristened the ancient name of the kingdom from Kangleipaak to Manipur. His fifteen successors followed this practice diligently till 1955 when the last Meitei king Bodhchandra Singh passed away. Under Pamheiba, the newly rechristened Manipur state achieved major successes against Burma and also expanded territory.
Kuki rebellion against the British
The history of the Kuki-Zo people is harder to reconstruct. The paucity of written records, their fierce independent spirit, and the remoteness of their villages has all meant that besides folk history, what we are left with are a few mentions in Meitei literature, and the very recent British Gazettes. The problem is also exacerbated by the rich diversity of clans and tribes. “The whole of the wild tribes who dwell in the mountain district between Bengal and Burma, Cachar and Manipur and Arrakan, have received this designation. In other cases where a large number of tribes have been classed together (Abors, Singphos, Nagas), the differences between tribes separated socially and geographically from one another have, since the imposition of the name, been discovered to be so great as to suggest doubts as to the advisability of attempting any such wide generic classification; but in the case of the Kukis, all the tribes (with indeed the exception of the Pois) have so many common grounds of affinity, that the classification seems to have been, however accidental, correct”, notes the 1886 Gazetteer, by Captain E W Dun.
According to the 1881 Census, there were roughly 30,000 Kukis in Manipur. With increasing Vaishnavisation of the kingdom and gradually increasing contestation over the rich resources of the valley and hills, as well British attempts to subjugate them, the Kukis organised a major rebellion between 1917 and 1919. The rebellion ended with the death of more than a hundred on the Kuki side and the destruction of more than 120 Kuki villages and their subjugation. But this also laid the foundation of a modern Kuki nationalism as it brought together various clans against a common enemy. P S Haokip’s book on Kuki nationalism, ‘Zale’n-Gam, The Kuki Nation’, records a war song from that time: “Phai chungnung kol kimvel’e (From all around the valley of Manipur) Kolmang tolkon (From beyond the horizon of Burma) Ikal lhangphai thin eisem gom me, Phai thin sem gome (The valley storm brought us together) Lheppon bang kitho tin (Let us stack together (stand together) like the folded clothes) Nam cham khat in vabang pao tadite (Like the birds, let us speak (fight) as one free nation.)”
HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archeological digs. The views expressed are personal.
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