Y E S T E RY E A R S
Polo’s birthplace Thoughts from Manipur as polo in England turns 150 By Rajkumar Nimai Singh, PhD
Maharaja Churachand Singh, seated left, with Chief Engineer Blackie, seated right, after playing at Kangla Fort, 1930.
Polo is now 150 years old in England and is flourishing there and across the world. But as the year-long Polo150 events, organized by the UK Armed Forces Polo Association, closes at the 5th Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament, it is faltering. Attempts are being made to revitalize the modern game in Manipur, where it was once regarded as a game for both royalty and commoner alike. This will depend on the survival of the Manipuri pony, which is facing the threat of extinction due to the loss of grazing areas to development. Polo has also seen a glorious but little-known chapter of the game in Manipur, the game’s
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birthplace. This includes, remarkably, the first Manipur team to play internationally, in 1854; the first international game in Manipur, against the British, in 1855; and the first international tournament in Cachar in 1869. According to Kangjeirol, a treatise of sagol kangjei (called hockey-on-horseback by Capt. Pemberton in 1835), King Kangba who ruled in Manipur in the pre-Christian era, introduced the game in a simple and crude style. It started in a festival known as Ukrong Hongba, during which Kangba showed his skill at dribbling a ball of bamboo root with his walking stick on the ground. He asked his people to play the game by sitting on horseback the next day. Accordingly, nobles and common people alike, after having lunch offered by the king, changed into new clothes and came to the venue of the festival with their ponies and started playing the game as innovated by the king. The game was witnessed by Queen Leima Tanu Sana who sat under a royal canopy amidst a huge crowd. Deriving from the name of the king, the game was known as sagol kangjei (sagol for horse or pony; and kangjei meaning Kangba’s stick). There is also an account of a sagol kangjei match between the friends of Nongda Lairen Pakhangba, who ascended the throne of Manipur in 33 CE. On the occasion of introducing his queen, Laisana to the royal crowd, a game of sagol kangjei was played with seven players a side. The names of the players who played on that occasion were Marjing, Khamlangba, Irum Ningthou, Ikop Ningthou, Irong Ningthou, Nongshaba and Pureilomba on one side; and Thangjing, Khoriphaba, Wangbaren, Yangoi Ningthou, Mayokpa, Oknaren and Loyarakpa on the other. They are all ancestors who were later deified as gods. The seven players on each team were described as pan’ngakpa (goal keeper), pallak (stopper or half back), pan’ngakchang (half-back), langjei (center forward), pallak (attacking midfielder), panjenchang (goal striker assister) and panjenba (goal striker). Despite other sources claiming that the game was popular during the reign of King Kyamba (1467-1508), the first mention of the game in the court chronicle, called the Cheitharol Kumbaba, is during the reign of King Khagemba
