Manipuri Sankirtana

Manipuri Sankirtana's history is told through a sequence of kings rather than one founding moment. The earliest thread traces to King Kiyamba, who ruled the Manipur valley from 1467 to 1508 and, after receiving an image of Vishnu from a neighboring king, is credited with introducing an early form of devotional kirtan singing into Manipuri court life, centuries before Vaishnavism became the kingdom's official religion. That formal turn came under King Charairongba, who reigned from 1697 to 1709 and began the royal court's adoption of Hindu worship, and it was completed under his successor, King Gareeb Niwaz, who in 1717 embraced the Chaitanya school of devotional Vaishnavism, known as Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and made it the state religion of the Meitei people.

The tradition's most celebrated form belongs to a later king still. Rajarshi Bhagyachandra, who ruled through the later eighteenth century, installed the image of Sri Govindajee, understood as a form of Krishna, in a temple built to house it, and instituted the offering of Sankirtana before that image as part of its regular worship. Manipuri Vaishnavas hold the pung, the barrel drum central to the practice, in a reverence that reflects this history directly: the drum's dark color is read as Krishna's own complexion, and its parts are named for Krishna, Radha and the gopis of his story, so that playing it is itself understood as an act of devotion rather than mere musical accompaniment.

A Sankirtana performance centers on two men playing the pung, joined by a small group of singer-dancers, traditionally all male, performing in a temple hall or a domestic courtyard encircled by seated devotees who receive the performance as worship rather than entertainment. Pung Cholom, the drum dance, and Kartal Cholom, the cymbal dance, are its most physically demanding elements, combining vigorous acrobatic movement with unbroken rhythmic and melodic control, skills transmitted the way most of the tradition is, from a mentor to a disciple over years of apprenticeship rather than through any written curriculum. The repertoire, known as Nata Sankirtana, narrates the life and deeds of Krishna in song, and the practice marks not only annual festivals but the major turning points of an individual life, the naming of a child, marriage, and the final rites at death, so Sankirtana runs through a Manipuri Vaishnava's calendar and biography alike rather than belonging to festival time only.

UNESCO inscribed the tradition on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013, under the title Sankirtana, ritual singing, drumming and dancing of Manipur, on India's nomination. The inscription is worth reading precisely: it names and covers Sankirtana itself, not the related Manipuri Raslila, the dance drama staging Krishna's circle dance with the gopis that developed alongside it and shaped Manipuri classical dance in turn. The two traditions share a religious world and a royal history but are staged, and were inscribed, separately.