Pung-Dhon-Dholak Cholom & Nat Sankirtan of Manipur
- Part 5 -

By Waikhom Damodar Singh *

The most unique and special feature of the Manipuri Nat Sankirtan music is - while the performers are to soften the hearts of the devotee- audience (Bhakta-Bhavaks) by infusing in them the divine, unallowed and sweet "Prem-rasa" of the Radha-Krishna Leela by a subtle process of their singing with concerned Abhinaya (arts).

They are in the meantime to exhibit occasionally some sort of a dancing of vigorous physical movement fabricated with indigenous elements, particularly by the Mridanga players of the Nat Pala and Holi Sankirtan music performers by blending two opposites - one that of the vigorous - Tandva form and the other of the soft - Laishya form indicating clearly that only the positive (vigorous) element cannot make the beings of things in the cosmic world without the negative (passive) element i.e. the male and the female elements.

Or else it may be said that the Manipuri Nat sankirtan musics have the distinct characteristics of being both "static" and "dynamic" in nature, very much unlike the other forms of kirtan singings, including even that of the original kirtan musics of Bengal - like the most mysterious feature under which the entire "Universe" or "Cosmic world" is existing i.e. "apparently at rest while everything in it is actually in motion", which is cosmic phenomenon to continue "eternally" in accordance with the "1st Law of Motions of the Bodies".

Discovered by Sir Issac Newton, English mathematician and physicist of 1642-1727 A.D. - the Law says that everything existing in the cosmic world and is either at the "state of rest or in motion" shall continue to be in that state forever unless it is compelled by any external Force to change that state.

Pung Chollom

Most interestingly also, all the singers, as a whole, move in "an anticlockwise circling motion" during the "beri koiba" portion of the singing of the so called "mel sakpa" which is anpther very dynamic process of the Manipuri Nat Pala singing, and the very unique and peculiar process is interpreted as to be a clear manifestation of the "Nebular Theory" of the Fundamental Physical Laws of the Nature of the Universe according to which, it is stated that, all the stars of the "proto state in the gaseous forms" revolve in their own axes in anticlockwise direction, and also according to the "Theory of Heaven" propounded by Immanuel Kant, German philosopher and idealist of 1724-1804 A.D. etc. the circling motions of all the heavenly bodies are in the anticlockwise direction as is in the vivid case of the Earth which rotates on its axis in a period of 24 hours and revolves round the Sun in a period of a year in the anticlockwise direction.

It had been only after the great second world war that the Manipuri dance, the Ras-Leela and the Mridanga and Dhon-Dholak Cholom plays became in the limelight, particularly the latter two, as the most amazing and spectacular (acrobatic and callisthenic) "world-wide" performance on the stage.

It is the most heroic and highly "acrobatic" (flying in the air sort of a thing in whirling motion with drums in the air) performances of the Mirdanga and the Dhen-Dholak players that greatly amuse and stun all the audiences, particularly of the foreign countries, for the credit of which really goes to the local "learned gurus" and also to the "deitic forefathers" who had left the "priceless legacies" and from whom had been inherited most proudly the very rare cultural and artistic "legacies" by the people - generation after geberation.

Which will, no doubt, remain "ever in-tact in their blood" though, very sadly enough, they have now fallen to a very "low strata, politically" from what their deitic and gallant forefathers were once "on top" as a people of an independent State or Land shining quite brilliantly like a little "jewel does" in the south-east Asia region till their thousands years old independent sovereignty and status" had been usurped by the mighty British Imperialists in the year 1891, April 27, who though became the invincible conquerors, were really noble in allowing the "vanquished Manipuris" to fully "keep-up" their exceptionally gifted "cultural and traditional legacies", such as of the world fame (dances and heroic indigenous games of Sagol Kangjei (Polo, later on called) etc.

Concluded

---

* Waikhom Damodar Singh wrote this article for The Sangai Express
This article was webcasted on August 20th, 2008

---