Jump to content

Khamba Thoibi

From Wikiquote

Khamba Thoibi (also, Khamba and Thoibi) is a classical Meitei language epic saga, about the romantic adventures of Khuman prince Khamba and his lover Moirang princess Thoibi. The term may also refer to the classical ballet (Khamba Thoibi Jagoi dance-drama) as well as ballad (musical narratives of the Moirang Kangleirol), dedicated to the two personalities.

Among the numerous literary adaptations of this ancient epic in medieval and modern times, one titled the Khamba Thoibi Sheireng (1940) turned on to be the magnum opus of its creator, Hijam Anganghal, having 39,000 lines, holding the third place among the longest Indian epic poems, just after the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. It was accepted as the national epic of Manipur, which was then a nation, until merging into the Indian Union in 1949. Due to its everlasting legacy, it was and is still the national epic of the Manipuris in their hearts.

Quotes

[edit]
  • I was delighted to see Khamba Thoibi at Manipur when you produced it as perhaps the first full scale ballet in the Manipuri form of dancing. The whole conception and execution wns excellent and some of the dancers were obviously highly talented and extremely well trained.
    I personally think that the Manipuri style is the most graceful form of Indian dancing and I wish you every success in your attempt to develop and popularise it.
  • Khamba Thoibi is a Manipuri tale of delicate charm. This ballet of unusual charm has been composed by Vimala Raina. The most appealing aspect of the show was the care and patience with which the music, dances, costumes and settings had been brought together to create authenticity. Every scene was realistic that one felt transported to the magic land of Manipur in the medieval days of the King of Moirang. The market scene and the water-sports on the lake were quaint and beautiful.
  • I think the entire work should be published and that will at once raise the prestige and dignity of Manipuri literature; and an abstract of the poem in English with translations of typical passages, and a critical study of it, will be desideratum in Indian literature bringing home to the rest of India and to the world what important things, important from the point of view of voicing the aspirations, the ideals and the social and cultural milieu of a whole people are being done in this distant corner of India. The position of our Poet is comparable to that of Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali and Modern Indo-Aryan literature.
[edit]
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Commons
Commons
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: