Fairs and Festivals, Part VII-B, Vol-XXII, Manipur
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CENSUS OF INDIA 1961 V;OLUME XXII MANIPUR PART VII-B FAIRS AND FESTIVALS R. K. BIRENDRA SINGH oj the Manipur Civil Service Superintendent of Census Operations7 Manipur 1961 CENSUS PUBLICATIONS OF MANIPUR (All the Census Publications of Manipur will bear Volume No. XXII) PART I General Report including Subsidiary Tables PART II (with sub-parts) · {General Population Tables Economic Tables Cultural and Migration Tables l In one Volume PART III · Household Economic tables j PART IV • Housing Report and Tables 1 PART V • Special Tables for Scheduled Castes and t In one Volume Scheduled Tribes PART VI .. • Village Survey Monographs PART VII-A • Handicraft Survey Reports PART VII-B* • Fairs and Festivals PART VIII-A • Administration Report on Enumeration } Not ror sale PART VIII-B • Administration Report on Tabulation PART IX • • Census Atlas Volume STATE GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION 1 District Census Handbook ItThe Present Volume. CONTENTS I Pages I FOREWORD V-VIII PREFACE , IX MANIPURI CALENDAR X FESTIVALS IN MANIPUR 1 Types of festivals- (a) Seasonal festivals (b) Birth anniversaries (c) Religious festivals (d) New year's·' day (e) National festivals' (f) Domestic festivals (g) Modern attitude towards festivals PART I-FESTIVALS-MEITEI (Hindu Manipuri) Festivals Saraswati Puja YAOSANG (HOD! FESTIVAL) . 4-7' Origin.. of the festival. Mode .of ce.Lebrat.ion . B~UNI . " 9.>..10 RATH YATRA (K!ANG) .: 11-12 JANMASTAMI (Krishna Janma) 13-14 HElKiRU HITONGBA (Hi yang Tanaba) ls:i6 DURGA PUlA. " " .' " " " . 111-19 . Temple Celebration Household Celebrations Public' Celebrations . Kwakjatra DIWALI-The festival of light 21-22 Origin I NINGOL CHA~KOUBA , . 23 RAS LEELA. 24-26 Origin l Mode of performance Variations in performance Nipa Pala A. Kunja Ras B. Maha Ras C. Vas ant Ras D. Nitya Ras B. Sanjenba or Gostha F. Udukhol Ras The philosophy of Ras Leelas ii Pagf!s LAl HARAOBA 27-29 CHBIRAOBA 31-32 TRIBAL FESTIVALS 33-34 Lom Kivah (A Thadou Festival) Festivals of the TangkhuJ Nagas (1) Luira (2) Yarra (Club or Guild Festival) (3) Mangkhap (4) Ohumpha ~UI NAGA FBSTIFAL-GAN-NGAI 39-40 CHRISTMAS ,I 41 MUSLIM FESTIVALS' ., 42-43 Ramjan, Bakri-Id, Shab-e-Barat RBPUBLIC DAY - A National Festival 44 PART II-FAIRS • fl· 45 Gandhi Mela • 46 , Hill and Plain Festival, 1954 • • 47 Khadi and Village Industries Exhibition . • 48 Manipur' AgribultutaI and Industrial Fair, 1962 • • 49 Other Fairs , • SO Appendis " , '. '. '. '~ . .. '. • 51-52 Eltrllct- The Pleasing of the god Thangjing by Lieut. Col. J. Shakes pear . • • .53·56 tlST OF PHOTOGRAPHS ALONGWITH CAPTIONS FOR FAIRS AND F~STIVALS Photo Captions. Name of Festival/Fair No. Children who are brought by their elders also participate in Holi YAOSANG (HOLl) 2 Astraw hut to be burnt·dowI1 in the evening 'of th~ firs! day 'of Holi " 3 Thabal-chongba dance '. " 4 A band party playing during ThaMl-chOngba'dance " 5 A Holi party of femaleS onl9. '. " 6 Procession of Holi patties towards the temple of Vijay Govind at Sagolband, ImphaJ .' .' .' '.' . " 7 "Jaypatra" -5\ royal award for supreme dedication to the service of Govindji-being carried by one of the recipient parties . " 8 Govindji's temple ",ith a pair of domes " 9 The front view of the temple of Vi jay Govind " 10 Holi performers and spectators " 11 Holi singing inside the mandap of Govindji " 12 The huge rath (kang) of the palace • RATHJATRA(KANG) 13 The royal rath and its devotees " 14 Ordinary rath of the Manipuris. Arti and kirtan being performed in front of a house . " 15 The oarsmen on their ""ay to the canal HEIKRU HITONGBA 16 Hitongba (the chief rider) taking rest before the boat-race starts " 17 Worshippers are busy installing idol of Govindji on boats before the boat-race begins. -. • " 18 The boat-race is in progress " 19 The temple of the Goddess of Hiyangthang ""ho during the post-Hindu period is identified with the goddess Durga DURGA PUJA 20 The huge mandap of the goddess of Hiyangthang " 21 Scene from Kwakjatra festival " 22 Scene from Kwakjatra festival • 23 Scene from Kwakjatra festival • " 24 The beautiful costume of the Gopies in the Ras Lilas of ManipuI • RAS LILA DANCE 25 A child in the role of Krishna in Ras Lila 26 Enactment of Ras Lila dance by professional artistes on the stage " 27 Enactment of Ras Lila dance by professional artistes on the stage • " 28 Two lovely children as they appear in Sansenba-a festival depi~ting the childhood life of Lord Krishna and his co'Wherd companies • " 29 A group of male and feD;1ale participants in the Lai -Haraoba festival LAI HARAOBA 30 Males and females dancing in Lai-Haraoba festival iii IV• Photo Captions Name of FestivalfFair No. 31 Males and females dancing in Lai-Haraoba festival • LAI HARAOBA 32 If. scene from·Lai-Haraoba dance at Moirang village • " 33 People climbing the Cheiraoching Hill in the afternoon of Cheiraoba • CHEIRAOBA 34 If. beautiful 'Kharakla in her tradi,tional costume stands at her gate to receive her guests . : YARRA 35 A group of Kabui Naga dancers • GAN-NG.j\I 36 Kabui Nagas in their colourful dance costume " 37 Two pairs of Kabui dancers displaying their dance " 38 A group of tribals taking part in the Republic Day procession • REPUBLIC DAY 39 A scene from4:he Republic Day celebration " 40 A group of school girls parading on the Republic nay " 41 The main entrance of the Gandhi Mela GANDHI MELA FOREWORD Although since the beginning of history, foreign travellers and historjans have recorded the 'principal1Ilarts and entrepots of commerce in India and have even mentioned important festivals and fairs and articles of special excellence available in them, no systematic regional inventory was attempted until the time of Dr. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in the beginning of the nineteenth century. '0ne of the tasks set before him by a resolution of the Governor-General in.,Council in 1807 was "to examine with as much accuracy as local circumstances will admit": "an account ,of the various kinds and amount of goods manufactured in each district ............ the ability of the country to ,produce the raw materials used in them ............ how 'the necessary ca- 'Pit&l is procured, the situation of the artists and manufacturers, the mode of -providing their goo,ds.. ............. :commerce; the quantity of goods exported and impor.ted in each district; the manner of conducting sales, especially at fairs and markets .................... ~" . That he discharged .his duty very thoroughly will appear from his statistical accounts of Mysore and the northern distri~ts of'Bengal and Bihar. The great Revenue Surveys of the middle 'of the nineteenth ce~tury made no attempt in ,this direction, and accounts of fairs and festivals in districts were neglected until W. W. Hunter took up the com,pilation of statistical accounts again in the.last quarter of last century. For the purpose ,of notifyjng bolidays in the East India Company's offices the Board in Calcutta had since 1799 'been in the habit of '~procuring an accurate Bengalee almanac properly authenticated by 'brahmanical astronomy'" from the Nabad'wip Court (Letter from Secretary of Board to Col lector of Nadiya, 5' July 1799, No. 8217, W. W. Hunter's Unpublishe'd Bengalee MSS Records1. Satis Chandra Vidyabhusan in his Histor,y Of Indian Logic wrote that "almanacs were prepared by the Pundit Samaj of Nabadwip which were supplied to the Nawab's Court of Murshidabad as well as to the 'East India Company, the Supreme Court, etc ...............'the Nabadwip Patljika under the imprimatur of NabadwipddhijJat~ranugya was accepted by all the landlords of Bengal". This Nabadw1P Pcinjika which remained the standard almanac for Bengal continued in.use through out the first half of the nineteenth century ana each iss-qe contained a list of important fairs and{estivals in every district. A valuable almanac was that published by the Vernacu1ar Litera ture Committee's Almanac published in 1855-6 (1262 BS.). It gave an account of 309 famous fairs of Bengal in its second part. The Gupta Pless Panjik'a or almanac which virtually repiaced Nabadwip .panjika made its first appearance in lS69 and continued to publish a useful tist of important fairs and festivals in the country. But this list was by no means exhaustive, nor were W.W. Hunter's which he published with each Statistical Account. Meanwhile native crafts, industries and objects of artistry decayed rapidly and thoroughly as a result of t-he East Indi~ Company's policy of extinguis:Qing them, and official interest in fairs and festivals declined, although these occasions, divested of much of 'their glorY, still con tinued to attract livestock, grain, merchandise and handicrafts fram far and near. The Imperial Gazetteers.published between 1880 and 1910 gave a minor place to these important. seasonal mar kets or temporary inland ports. Even the District 'Gazetteers, which still are the fullest and most compact accounts of districts, make but casual mention of fairs and festivals in the country and attach little economic importance to them. For, indeed, the importance of fairs and festivals-as the meeting ground of livestock and agricultural commodities, of many religions and many cultures, crafts and motifs fwm far and near, of ideas and design, workmanship· excellence and finish of tools and appliances IQf trends of the future and vanishing practices of the past of adaptability and 10'cal variation; of v vI skill and imagination-declined with the punitive ~port policy of the East India Company and the unrestricted import of machine-made goods, so much so that at the close of the last century fairs and festivals were reduced to a matter of concern only for the Public Health Department. They were no longer regarded as important centres of trade and commerce, but were now from the Government point of view merely a collection of human-beings among whom epidemics were to be prevented from breaking out.