Epics in Imprints-1.pdf - Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan

RAMAYANA IN MANIPURI LITERATURE
AND FOLKLORE
E.NILAKANTA SINGH
Shri Aurobindo wrote about the Ramayana
thus:
“The Ramayana embodied for the Indian
imagination its highest and tenderest
human ideals of character, made strength
and courage and gentleness and purity
and fidelity and self-sacrifice familiar to it
in the suavest and most harmonious forms
colour so as to attract the emotion and
the aesthetic sense, stripped morals of all
repellent austerity on the one side or on
the other of mere commonness and lent a
certain high divineness to the ordinary
things of life, conjugal and filial and
maternal and fraternal feeling, the duty of
the prince and leader and the loyalty of
follower and subject, the greatness of the
great and the truth and worth of the
simple, toning things ethical to the beauty
of a more psychical meaning, by the glow
of its ideal hues”. (The Foundation of
Indian Culture, Centenary Edition (Page
290).
This sums up the attitude of the Manipuri
Hindus of Manipur and outside also to the
Ramayana tradition since the 18 th century
A.D., when Ramanandi cult of North India
became a State religion during the reign
of the great Manipuri King, Garib Niwas
(1709-1748). Bengal Vaishnavism which
found supreme expression in the latter
part of 18 th century A.D. somehow
integrated the Rama-worship into the
liberal outlook of a Hindu mind and even
though the cult has been assimilated into
the Vaishnavic way of life, the Ramayana
still retains its power and glory for the
literate masses, the chief vehicles of
3
FEBRUARY - AUGUST 2003
communication are: Kathaks whom the
Manipuris call Wari leebas (storry-tellers),
the ministrels on the Pena (Stringed
Manipuri musical instrument), the singers
on the Dholok (called Khongjaom Parba
sakpas), the Kirtana musicians of the old
Pala (Bangdesh Pala as they call it) and
the Jatras based on the Ramayana. The
characters of the Ramayana become
intensely real, human and alive to the
Manipuri mind. In a sense, an old illiterate
Manipuri lady in the village knows much
more about the Ramayana than the degree
holders of the Universities and should I
say, more cultured than most of the elites
of Manipur. The old Manipuri scholars
presented the Ramayana in all its seven
books under the inspiration of Krttivasi
Ramayana (of Bengal) as early as 10 th
century A.D. The entire Valmiki
Ramayana has been translated recently
and the tradition of presenting Ramayanastories
on the modern stage and also in
the Jatra style still continues in full vigour.
It is evident that the Ramayana has really
created an impact on the Manipuri minds
through the ages. It is possible that the
Manipuri Ramayana might have been
popular in the 18 th century A.D. during the
reign of King Garib Niwas. But its
importance has been eclipsed by the
Bhagavata tradition of Bengal school of
Vaishnavism. The considerable neglect of
the Manipuri works written in Manipuri
script during the later part of 18 th century
and 19 th century is responsible to a degree
for the comparative isolation of Manipuri
Ramayana from the mass mind. Moreover,
the work remained in manuscript and has
been printed and published only recently.
But the comparative neglect of the
Manipuri Ramayana has been more than
compensated by the various mass media