Dance, sword, string & loom
A culture that exports.
A state of three million people gave the world a classical dance form, a martial art — and the game of polo. This is the short version; the long version is why you come.
The strongest claim
Polo was born here
Modern polo descends from sagol kangjei, the Meitei game played on Manipuri ponies for centuries before British officers encountered it in the 1850s and carried it to Calcutta and then the world. The ground where it was played — Mapal Kangjeibung, in the heart of Imphal — is widely recognised as the oldest polo ground on earth, and it is still in use.
The Manipuri pony that made the game possible is itself sacred in Meitei tradition — Marjing, the deity of polo, rides one, and the 122-foot Marjing Polo Statue above Heingang is the state's monument to horse and game. International tournaments still bring visiting teams to play on the original ground during the Sangai Festival.
One of India's eight classical dances
Manipuri Ras Leela
Manipuri dance — the Ras Leela above all — is one of India's eight recognised classical dance forms: devotional, circular, almost weightless, with none of the percussive footwork of other schools. The dancers' cylindrical, mirror-worked skirts (potloi) and the veiled, gliding movements grew from the temple courtyards of the Vaishnavite kings, and the form is still danced as worship, most famously at Shree Govindajee Temple.
Its deeper root is older: the ritual dances of Lai Haraoba, performed by maibi priestesses at forest-deity shrines, carry the pre-Vaishnavite movement vocabulary from which the classical form grew.
The art of sword and spear
Thang-Ta
Huyen Langlon — known by its weapons, thang (sword) and ta (spear) — is Manipur's martial art, forged in the centuries when every Meitei man was liable for war service. Banned twice under colonial rule, it survived in secret and is now taught openly in akhadas across the valley: leaping sword forms, spear dances and unarmed locks, performed at festivals and practised as living discipline.
Demonstrations are a fixture of the Sangai Festival; several Imphal schools welcome visitors who ask ahead.
One string, one bow, one epic
Pena music
The pena — a single-stringed fiddle of bamboo and coconut shell, bowed with a curved horsehair bow — is the oldest voice in Meitei music. Pena balladeers carried the epics and court chronicles for centuries; the instrument opens Lai Haraoba rites and its keening, speech-like tone is unlike anything else in Indian music. A handful of master players keep the tradition alive, and hearing one live — usually at a festival or shrine rite — is worth planning around.
A loom in nearly every home
Handloom
Manipur has one of the highest concentrations of handloom weavers in India, and weaving remains overwhelmingly women's work and women's wealth. The phanek (wraparound skirt), the shawl-cloth phee in its many named forms — gossamer Wangkhei Phee, patterned Moirang Phee, the honour-cloth Shaphee Lanphee of the hills — are daily wear, ritual gift and family heirloom at once.
Buy at Ima Keithel, where the weavers and their daughters sell directly — and see the crafts page for the GI-tagged cloths worth carrying home.
A script reborn
Meitei Mayek
The Meitei script — Meitei Mayek — was the writing of the valley until the 18th century, when royal conversion to Vaishnavism replaced it with the Bengali script and old manuscripts were burned. Revived through the 20th century, it is again taught in schools and appears on signboards across Imphal: an angular, elegant alphabet whose letters are traditionally named for parts of the body. You'll see it throughout this site beside place names — ꯀꯪꯂꯥ (Kangla), ꯂꯣꯛꯇꯥꯛ (Loktak).