Mangang Salai
Meitei
At a glance
- Called a
- Salai
- Community
- Meitei
- Found in
- Manipur
About
Mangang is the first of the seven Meitei salai of Manipur, with Luwang, Khuman, Angom, Moirang, Kha Nganba and Sarang Leishangthem. The royal Ningthouja line is counted with it. The sub-lineages of the Mangang salai are yumnaks. It is a Meitei clan in its own system and is not a gotra.
What “Salai” means for the Meitei
A salai (also called a yek) is one of the seven clans of the Meitei of Manipur. Each salai is made up of yumnaks, the family names that act as surnames today, and belonging follows the father's line. Marriage within one's own salai is forbidden.
Name and Origin
Meitei tradition and the royal chronicle (Cheitharol Kumbaba) begin the Ningthouja line with Nongda Lairen Pakhangba, dated by tradition to 33 CE. The name Mangang is older than the dynasty in some accounts. One reading, from Wahengbam Ibohal as cited by Wikipedia, is that Mangang first named two groups, the Mangang of the hills and the Ningthouja who held Kangla in the valley, and that the Ningthoujas later came to be called Mangangs. T. C. Hodson in 1908 recorded this clan only as Ningthaja, the royal clan.
Historical Journey
The seven salai were once separate kingdoms in the Manipur valley. Accounts based on the royal chronicle say the Mangang were merged into the Ningthouja polity under King Naothingkhong in the 7th century, the Luwang were subdued in the 8th century, and the Khuman kingdom was merged in the 14th, so that the Ningthouja king became the supreme ruler. The name Meitei first meant the Ningthouja alone; by the 15th century it covered all seven salai. The early dates come from the chronicle itself and are traditional. The Mangang yumnaks are many, and their number differs by source: 115 in Hodson (1908), 125 in the Manipur Science and Technology Council's account, and 234 to 256 in recent Meitei compilations. The royal family took up Hinduism in the 18th century, in the reign of Pamheiba, known as Garib Niwaz, who ruled from 1709 to 1748.
How the Salai Is Kept
The Meitei are exogamous by salai: a person may not marry within the same salai or yek, because its members are held to descend from a common ancestor. Marriage is also barred between children of the same mother, even by different fathers, and some pairs of clans are barred from marrying, such as Khuman and Luwang in one Meitei account. Hodson recorded further restrictions between particular clans. Each of the seven clans and its families worship their own ancestors, and the Meitei religion calls an ancestor deity of a clan or family an apokpa; the sources checked do not name the Mangang apokpa. Meitei Brahmin (Bamon) families such as Kshetrimayum belong to no salai.
Presence Across Regions
Kangla and the Imphal valley
Meitei
The Ningthouja held Kangla, the old capital, in the valley, from where the dynasty ruled the unified kingdom.
Manipur hills
Meitei
In the account cited from Wahengbam Ibohal, the Mangang group lived in the hills before it merged with the Ningthouja.
Notable Personalities
Nongda Lairen Pakhangba
traditionally 33 CE
First recorded Ningthouja ruler in the Cheitharol Kumbaba and the first attested king of unified Kangleipak; the date is traditional.
Pamheiba (Garib Niwaz)
1709 to 1748
Ningthouja king in whose reign the royal family adopted Hinduism; named in the royal chronicle translated by Saroj Nalini Parratt (2005).
Stories and Legends
From ten clans to seven
Hodson recorded a Meitei tradition that there had once been ten clans, and that two or three of them were wiped out, leaving the seven salai. In his 1908 list the seven are Ningthaja, Kumul, Luang, Angom, Moirang, Khabananba and Chenglei, which are the Mangang, Khuman, Luwang, Angom, Moirang, Kha Nganba and Sarang Leishangthem of the modern lists.