Imphal Valley · Northeast Hill Massif
The Imphal valley is the one region in this part of India whose history is periodised from inside itself. The Cheitharol Kumbaba is a court chronicle kept in the Meitei script that records reigns from the traditional accession of Nongda Lairen Pakhangba in 33 CE and was maintained, year by year, into the twentieth century — a continuous administrative record rather than a work of literature, and one of the few such series anywhere in the eastern Himalayan foreland. Its early entries are far older than the surviving compilation and cannot be verified independently, but from roughly the fifteenth century onward it gives the valley something its hill neighbours simply do not have: dates. That is why the valley's periodisation turns on its own kings and its own catastrophes rather than on the Delhi or Bengal chronology — the hinge is not 1526 or 1757 but 1709, when a king changed the state religion and the script it wrote in, and 1819, when a Burmese occupation emptied the valley for seven years and reset almost everything about it.
Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.
The valley floor begins as a set of principalities rather than a state. Meitei society is organised into seven yek-salai — Ningthouja, Angom, Khuman, Luwang, Moirang, Khaba-Nganba and Chenglei — which the chronicle treats as both clans and polities, and the long work of the Ningthouja line was to absorb the others, Moirang at the southern end of the valley being among the last. The chronicle's own starting point, the accession of Nongda Lairen Pakhangba at Kangla in 33 CE, is a traditional date that the court treated as historical; there is no independent evidence for it. What can be said is that by the eleventh century the valley had a written allocation of duties among its clans, which is a state doing what states do.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 33 CE (traditional) | The Cheitharol Kumbaba dates the accession of Nongda Lairen Pakhangba at Kangla to this year and counts every subsequent reign from it. The date is the chronicle's own and is not independently attested. |
| undated, early | The seven yek-salai take form as clan-polities on the valley floor. The Ningthouja line absorbs the others over a long period, with Moirang in the south among the last to be brought in. |
| undated | Meitei Mayek, the valley's own script, is in use. Its origin is not datable and its early history is argued over. |
| 1074–1121 | The reign of Loiyumba, in which the Loyumba Shinyen is issued — a written allocation of hereditary duties and services among the clans and households of the valley, dated in the tradition to 1110. |
This is the valley at its most outward-facing. It looks east, because its water does: the Manipur river leaves for the Chindwin, and the Kabaw valley beyond the eastern rim was contested with the Shan principalities and then with the Burmese kingdom for four centuries. Kyamba's alliance with the Pong ruler in the late fifteenth century and the taking of Kyang set that pattern. The other long thread is religious and it changes the valley's surface without displacing what is underneath. Gaudiya Vaishnavism arrives at court in the early eighteenth century and becomes the state religion under Pamheiba; Meiteilon begins to be written in a Bengali-derived script alongside, and later instead of, Meitei Mayek; the chronicle dates the destruction of a body of older Meitei manuscripts to 1729. Two generations later Bhagyachandra's court produced the Ras Lila and installed the Govindaji image, which is where Manipuri classical dance takes the form it still has. Sanamahi household practice continued through all of it, in the same houses, which is why the valley today runs two ritual systems without either having replaced the other.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1467–1508 | The reign of Kyamba. An alliance with the Pong ruler leads to the taking of Kyang in the Kabaw valley, and a Vishnu image and temple at Bishnupur are associated with his reign. |
| 1597–1652 | The reign of Khagemba, the valley's high point before the eighteenth century, from which brick-built works at Kangla and a settled administration date. |
| 1709 | Pamheiba, later titled Garibniwaz, accedes. Gaudiya Vaishnavism becomes the state religion during his reign and a Bengali-derived script comes into use for Meiteilon; the chronicle dates the destruction of a body of older Meitei manuscripts, the Puya Meithaba, to 1729. His death is dated to 1748 in some accounts and to the early 1750s in others. |
| 1724 onward | Repeated Manipuri campaigns eastward into the Burmese kingdom, and repeated Burmese counter-campaigns into the valley. |
| 1762 | A treaty is concluded with the East India Company — the first formal Anglo-Manipuri agreement, sought against Burmese pressure and largely unimplemented. |
| 1764–1798 | The reign of Ching-Thang Khomba, known as Bhagyachandra. The Ras Lila is composed at court and the Govindaji image installed; Manipuri dance takes its classical form in this period. |
The modern period opens with the worst seven years in the valley's record. The Burmese occupation of 1819 to 1826, remembered as Chahi Taret Khuntakpa, the Seven Years' Devastation, drove a large part of the population out to Cachar, Sylhet and the surrounding hills and left the valley floor depopulated; Manipuri communities in Assam and Bangladesh today descend in part from that flight. Gambhir Singh recovered the valley with the force raised as the Manipur Levy, and the Treaty of Yandabo in February 1826 confirmed Manipur's separate existence under British protection. Sixty-five years later a succession quarrel inside the palace brought the British in as arbiters and ended the state's independence: the coup of September 1890, the killing of the Chief Commissioner Quinton and his officers in March 1891, the stand at Khongjom in April where Paona Brajabasi was killed, the occupation of Imphal, and the public hanging of Tikendrajit and Thangal General at Imphal on 13 August 1891, which Manipur observes as Patriots' Day. A five-year-old, Churachand Singh, was installed and the state administered under British paramountcy. What is most distinctive about the half-century that followed is that its two great popular actions were led by women out of the Khwairamband market — the agitation of 1904 against the revival of compulsory labour, and the far larger one that began on 12 December 1939 over the export of rice out of a valley that was running short of it. The Second World War reached the floor in 1944.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1819–1826 | Chahi Taret Khuntakpa, the Seven Years' Devastation. Burmese occupation empties much of the valley floor and drives large numbers into Cachar, Sylhet and the hills. |
| 24 February 1826 | The Treaty of Yandabo ends the First Anglo-Burmese War. Gambhir Singh's Manipur Levy recovers the valley and Manipur's separate existence is recognised under British protection. |
| 21 September 1890 | A palace coup removes Maharaja Surachandra Singh; his brother Kulachandra is installed with Tikendrajit as Senapati. The British treat the succession as a matter for them to settle. |
| 22–27 April 1891 | The Anglo-Manipur War. Chief Commissioner Quinton's mission to Imphal in late March ends with Quinton, Grimwood, Skene and other officers killed; a Manipuri force is defeated at Khongjom on 25 April, where Paona Brajabasi is killed, and Imphal is occupied on 27 April. |
| 13 August 1891 | Tikendrajit and Thangal General are publicly hanged at Imphal; Kulachandra and others are transported. The date is observed in Manipur as Patriots' Day. |
| 1904 | The first Nupi Lan. An order requiring Manipuri men to fetch timber from the Kabaw valley, reviving the lallup labour obligation, is refused; several thousand women of Imphal force its withdrawal within about a week. |
| 12 December 1939 | The second Nupi Lan begins over the export of rice from a valley facing shortage. Women confront the administration at the Khwairamband market and outside the police station on 15 December, the durbar building on 25 December and the tax office at Sawungbung on 16 January 1940, and enforce a market boycott from February 1940. |
Rulers and commanders
The figure from whom the Cheitharol Kumbaba counts every subsequent reign. The accession date is the chronicle's own and is traditional rather than attested; what it establishes is that the court kept a continuous reign-list from a fixed origin.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Kangla
Issued the Loyumba Shinyen, a written allocation of hereditary duties and services among the valley's clans and households — an administrative document rather than a proclamation, and the earliest evidence of the valley being run as a single system.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Kangla
Campaigned east into the Burmese kingdom and made Gaudiya Vaishnavism the state religion. A Bengali-derived script came into use for Meiteilon in his reign, and the chronicle dates the destruction of a body of older Meitei manuscripts to 1729.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Kangla
Lost the valley to Burmese invasion and recovered it. His court produced the Ras Lila and installed the Govindaji image; the classical form of Manipuri dance dates from his reign.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Kangla and Langthabal
Raised and commanded the Manipur Levy that retook the valley from Burmese occupation, ending the Seven Years' Devastation. The Treaty of Yandabo of February 1826 confirmed the recovery.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Imphal
Governed as regent for the infant Chandrakirti after Gambhir Singh's death and later took the throne himself. The regency held the valley together through the sixteen years in which it was most exposed.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Imphal
Commander of the Manipuri forces and the central figure of the 1890 palace coup and the war of 1891. He was tried for waging war and publicly hanged at Imphal on 13 August 1891.
Dynasty: Ningthouja. Seat: Imphal
Senior soldier and minister who had served the Manipur court for decades before the war of 1891. Tried with Tikendrajit and hanged with him at Imphal, at an advanced age.
Seat: Imphal
The history of Imphal Valley from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (8)