Manipuri Culture during Hinduization and the Politics of the Sanskrit Epics

Abstract

This paper interrogates the ramifications of Hindu cultural colonization and the role of the two Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana as catalytic agents of change and social and cultural transformation when cross-cultural transactions took place in Manipur in the eighteenth century. With the initiation of King Pamheiba (1706-1749) into Ramandi faith Manipur became a Hindu kingdom that got rid of all indigenous religious practices including the annual ritual festivals, notably Laiharaoba. The demolition of the Meitei shrines, the burial of the deities and the burning of a stockpile of Meitei puyas (treatises on a number of subjects) rendered in the old Meitei script led to the subordination of the independent kingdom of Kangleipak as Other. This paper demonstrates how the widespread adoption and popularization of Hinduism in the eighteenth century could be effected by the epic narrative of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. A new tradition of storytelling associated with these migratory epics with their religious fervour reshaped and influenced the minds of many Meiteis towards accepting Hinduism. The story tellers distorted the epic stories to suit the sentiments of the Meiteis. The original myths, legends, genealogy were recreated in cross-cultural context to the extent of colouring the Meiteis as being duped into believing that they were descendants of the Pandava Arjun. Manipur now became part of the Mahabharata in the newly formed oral tradition at the cost of Meitei culture and identity. This politics of subordination although an inevitable part of power relations in colonial enterprises is today subverted by a native discourse returning to the old. That way, the paper is a critique of the Hindu cultural domination over the native Meiteis of Manipur, and the retrieval of the past.