Revisiting Hijam Anganghal Singh’s Khamba Thoibee Sheireng
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Dr Elangbam Hemanta Singh
For this critical review, four sections from Hijam Anganghal’s monumental epic Khamba Thoibee Sheireng are examined: “Cattle Herding Job,” “Khamba into Hiding Again,” “Kang Match,” and “Een Fishing,” based on the English translation by Jodha Chandra Sanasam (Sanasam 1–36). Sanasam’s translation, published in 2016, makes available to wider readership a major Manipuri literary achievement. Sana-sam (1944-2021) himself was a respected literary figure and also a Professor of ENT, having won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2012 for Mathou Kanba DNA (2009).
Hijam Anganghal Singh (1892–1943), who devoted the years 1939 and 1940 to composing the epic, produced an astonishing 39,000 lines, though the work was not published until 1964 by Hijam Raju Singh. Anganghal’s stature in Manipuri literature is well recognised; in 1948, the Manipuri Sahitya Parishad honoured him posthumously with the title of “Kaviratna.” His other major works include the plays Nimai Sanyas (1927), Thambal Chongbi (1928), and Ibemma (1938), the epic poem Singel Indu (1938), and the novels Yaithing Konu and Jahera.
Khamba Thoibee Shei-reng has long been regarded as the “Iliad of Manipur,” a description earned through both the scope of its narrative and the magnitude of its cultural influence. At the heart of the poem lies the legendary love story of Khamba and Thoibee, but Anganghal goes far beyond romantic retelling. The poem reconstructs the cultural imagination of the Meitei people and presents social, moral, and historical experiences in epic form. Approaching the text through a cultural-structural perspective— drawing on Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology and Northrop Frye’s myth criticism—brings into view a narrative shaped by shifting social structures, ritual symbolism, and the enduring negotiation between individual aspiration and collective order. Like major world epics, the text works in cycles of fall and renewal and seeks equilibrium between the sacred and the secular.
In Book 1, “Cattle Herding Job,” Anganghal begins not with invocation of divine powers but with stark social reality : “In the land of Kege Moirang, none there to take care for, / not even a single tiny fungus gnat to fly for” (1). Rather than presenting the cosmic grandeur found at the openings of the Iliad or the Ramayana, Anganghal turns to the deprivation of two vulnerable children. Khamba and Khamnu are described as “two kege destitute souls destined as Moirang orphans” (1), situating them in a society where birth determines position, yet survival depends on labour. Their orphan-hood reflects not only personal tragedy but the structural economic hardship historically familiar to Manipuri communities.
Khamba’s reverent address to his elder sister— “Mother selfsame! Call you sister I further / would not; ‘Mother’ I would rather call you now” (1)—signals the redefinition of familial structures. Here, filial duty, gender roles, and survival become interdependent. As Lévi-Strauss observes, myth operates to mediate contradictions, and Anganghal negotiates the inequality of social hierarchy through familial affection and responsibility. In contrast to the Kshatriya ideals of classical Sanskrit epics or the heroic wrath shaping Greek epic, labour becomes the foundation of heroism. Khamba resolves “to go for the wage-earning” (2), presenting a vision of heroism rooted in humility and perseverance. One may observe similarities to the early chapters of the Mahabharata, where the exiled Pandavas earn their living through physical effort, yet Anganghal’s depic- tion maintains a distinctly Manipuri sensibility groun-ded in agrarian work. He- roism arises not from conquest but from the ability to endure and sustain others.
This section leads naturally to the transformative encounter in Prince Ching-khuba Naha Telheiba’s household. Anganghal writes, “A house with a cow byre full with cattle he saw inside... / ‘O richness! This is what it is,’ thought he and entered thus” (5). The imagery is reminiscent of the Indo-European epic tradition, in which the household stands as metaphor for cosmic order—visible in the concept of ‘oikos’ in Greek epic and ‘grihastha’ in Vedic culture. The encounter also has echoes of Odysseus entering Ithaca in disguise or Rama arriving in Janaka’s court before recognition. The prince is struck by Khamba’s presence, considering him “a deity… a paragon, a great distinctive victor” (6–7). Yet unlike the Greek or Sanskrit epic pattern in which divine lineage marks the hero, Anganghal allows recognition to arise from inner dignity and serene bearing. Frye’s idea of the “myth of descent” becomes relevant; the extraordinary is discovered in the seemingly ordinary.
Khamba’s meeting with Thoibee is rendered with symbolic restraint. The princess stands motionless, “Like wood soaked in quiet water… staring at Khamba, no obligation, no rejection” (7). Their encounter avoids overt romantic flourish, instead suggesting recognition at the level of destiny. Comparisons emerge naturally with Kalidasa’s Abhijna-nasakuntalam, Dante’s first sight of Beatrice, or the meeting of Paris and Helen, but Anganghal’s treatment avoids the sensational. Abhinavagupta’s explanation of ‘úânta rasa’ is useful here; the emotional tone aims for serenity rather than passion, portraying love as a harmonising force between individual and society.
In Book 2, “Khamba into Hiding Again,” the narrative introduces concealment as a central motif. Having defeated Nongban in wrestling, Khamba must remain concealed “from any Moirang man’s notice” (17). Khamnu hides him “like keeping neatly folded clothes / in store-basket hidden from… notice” (17). The simile underscores how domestic care, usually the domain of women, takes on mythic resonance. Similar narratives exist in the Bhagavata Purana, where Krishna’s safety depends on women’s careful protection, and in the Mahabharata, where Arjuna adopts disguise during exile. Lévi-Strauss’s analysis of myth as reconciling oppositions applies clearly: public recognition must temporarily yield to private preservation for the hero’s destiny to unfold.
Thoibee’s emotional turmoil is expressed in lyric metaphor: “O wasp bee from beyond neighborhood! My stranger beloved!”(18); her longing becomes sacred endurance rather than romantic despair. Like Pene- lope in Homer, Thoibee sustains the moral centre of the narrative. Her role is not one of passive waiting but custodianship of hope and ethical restraint. Anganghal therefore invests female agency with sublime significance, something often subdued in patriarchal epic traditions.
Book 3, “Kang Match,” locates the love narrative within a communal festival. The traditional Manipuri game of kang represents more than recreation; it becomes a symbolic encounter between destiny and social visibility. Princess Thoibee, “freshener of all seasons, / was the team leader of County North” (23). This context invites comparison with ritualised contests in epic tradition, such as the chariot race in Homer or the swayamvara of Ramayana, where social values and personal destiny intersect in public space. When Thoibee’s kang “fell down sleek intact from his (Khamba) clothes,” (26) the incident becomes fateful rather than accidental. Frye’s discussion of ritualised games in heroic narrative helps clarify the symbolic meaning: chance reveals truth, while public action exposes private emotion.
Thoibee’s defence of Khamba—”Do not flap clothes please; it will bring me / bad names only” (26)—parallels Draupadi’s public appeal in the Mahabharata, though with a significant difference. In Anganghal, it is women who act as protectors of honour, rather than supplicants’ dependent upon patriarchal mercy. The balance between ritual pressure and individual assertion is a key element of Anganghal’s narrative architecture.
In Book 4, “Een Fishing,” the poem expands into ecological symbolism. Loktak Lake is not backdrop but living participant in the narrative. The union of water and land “became genuine aquatic lotus flowers blooming / at the joining line between water and land” (28). The lotus, a symbol shared across Indian religion and art, signifies renewal. In Manipuri context, the lake and its rooted vegetation, the ‘phum’, are part of cultural memory and lived environment. When Khamba and Thoibee’s meeting on the lake, “on Khamba’s boat this phum happened to bump” (29), is structured as a moment of destiny rather than coincidence. The broken bows and the recognition that follows—marked by “the chain and the stole the lady and / the maid recognized” (30)—create a moment similar to Penelope’s recognition of Odysseus, or Rama and Sita reunited.
What is remarkable is the emotional restraint of the scene. The closing dialogue—”Look listen, little brother ibungo, your big sister / wants to tell you” (31)—uses idioms of kinship to shape love’s expression. This intertwining of familial and romantic language captures an ethical universe in which personal affection must coexist with community expectations. The poem continuously navigates between nature and society, desire and duty, and emotion and restraint.
Khamba Thoibee Sheireng differs from many epics in its narrative voice. Rather than a single, authoritative bard, the poem carries echoes of collective oral tradition, particularly that of ‘pena’ minstrels. This quality aligns with A. K. Ramanujan’s argument that Indian folklore is “context-sensitive,” meaning that myth and everyday life are intertwined. Anganghal’s narrative not only retells history and legend but preserves memory, cultural ethics, and landscape. Loktak Lake, Moirang hills, and cattle pastures form what modern ecocritical thought would call a bioregional imagination—identity anchored in soil, water, labour, ritual, and everyday speech. Khamba is therefore less a conqueror than a guardian of social and environmental balance, which distinguishes him from epic heroes such as Achilles or Beowulf.
When compared with global epic tradition, the poem participates in the shared pattern of the romance-epic, blending the forces of love, social rivalry, labour, nature, and moral education. It affirms duty and community like the Ramayana, shares the heightened emotional resonance of Greek epic, yet departs from both by elevating work and humility to heroic stature. Following Frye’s terminology, the narrative embodies the “mythos of spring,” moving from hardship toward renewal. The barren description of Moirang at the beginning eventually gives way to the fertile landscape of Loktak, symbolising restoration of balance between individuals and the world they inhabit.
Vimala Raina, in Khamba Thoibi and Poems on Manipur (1963), notes that the story appears to belong to the reign of Chingkhu Telheiba in “about 1302 AD… a labyrinth of stories and incidents interconnected with semi-historical and semi-mythological trends.” Suniti Kumar Chatterji, writing in N. Tombi Singh’s Khamba and Thoibi: The Unscaled Height of Love (1976), assigns the narrative to the time of King Loyamba in the twelfth century. Tombi Singh adds that “The immortal love story of Khamba and Thoibi is not a legend but a historical event.” Anganghal’s version begins with a devotional prologue invoking “Shri Gurudev,” “Shri Shri Shri Khamba Mahaprabu,” and “Shri Shri Shri Ksna,” indicating the presence of sacred resonance in the framing of the narrative. Sanasam’s 2016 translation, with its reorganisation into 43 parts and additional contextual materials on Anganghal’s life and legacy, presents the story anew for modern readers.
In conclusion, Khamba Thoibee Sheireng deserves its position within the world of major epic traditions. Anganghal creates a synthesis in which history, legend, ritual, and the insights of daily life are inseparable. The hero is not valorised for military conquest but for endurance, labour, and devotion. Thoibee is not merely an object of affection but a moral anchor whose voice shapes the ethical landscape of Moirang. Loktak Lake and the countryside of Manipur are not passive settings but active participants in human destiny. Through patterned narrative, symbolic inversion, and archetypal framing, Anganghal crafts an epic that is both deeply local and universally comprehensible. By humanising the sacred and sanctifying the ordinary, the poet places Moirang in the company of Ayodhya, Troy, Ithaca, and Hastinapura, while preserving for posterity the values, aesthetics, and living memory of Manipuri cultural imagination.
The writer is with Manipur College, Imphal and can be reached at [email protected]
For this critical review, four sections from Hijam Anganghal’s monumental epic Khamba Thoibee Sheireng are examined: “Cattle Herding Job,” “Khamba into Hiding Again,” “Kang Match,” and “Een Fishing,” based on the English translation by Jodha Chandra Sanasam (Sanasam 1–36). Sanasam’s translation, published in 2016, makes available to wider readership a major Manipuri literary achievement. Sana-sam (1944-2021) himself was a respected literary figure and also a Professor of ENT, having won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2012 for Mathou Kanba DNA (2009).
Hijam Anganghal Singh (1892–1943), who devoted the years 1939 and 1940 to composing the epic, produced an astonishing 39,000 lines, though the work was not published until 1964 by Hijam Raju Singh. Anganghal’s stature in Manipuri literature is well recognised; in 1948, the Manipuri Sahitya Parishad honoured him posthumously with the title of “Kaviratna.” His other major works include the plays Nimai Sanyas (1927), Thambal Chongbi (1928), and Ibemma (1938), the epic poem Singel Indu (1938), and the novels Yaithing Konu and Jahera.
Khamba Thoibee Shei-reng has long been regarded as the “Iliad of Manipur,” a description earned through both the scope of its narrative and the magnitude of its cultural influence. At the heart of the poem lies the legendary love story of Khamba and Thoibee, but Anganghal goes far beyond romantic retelling. The poem reconstructs the cultural imagination of the Meitei people and presents social, moral, and historical experiences in epic form. Approaching the text through a cultural-structural perspective— drawing on Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology and Northrop Frye’s myth criticism—brings into view a narrative shaped by shifting social structures, ritual symbolism, and the enduring negotiation between individual aspiration and collective order. Like major world epics, the text works in cycles of fall and renewal and seeks equilibrium between the sacred and the secular.
In Book 1, “Cattle Herding Job,” Anganghal begins not with invocation of divine powers but with stark social reality : “In the land of Kege Moirang, none there to take care for, / not even a single tiny fungus gnat to fly for” (1). Rather than presenting the cosmic grandeur found at the openings of the Iliad or the Ramayana, Anganghal turns to the deprivation of two vulnerable children. Khamba and Khamnu are described as “two kege destitute souls destined as Moirang orphans” (1), situating them in a society where birth determines position, yet survival depends on labour. Their orphan-hood reflects not only personal tragedy but the structural economic hardship historically familiar to Manipuri communities.
Khamba’s reverent address to his elder sister— “Mother selfsame! Call you sister I further / would not; ‘Mother’ I would rather call you now” (1)—signals the redefinition of familial structures. Here, filial duty, gender roles, and survival become interdependent. As Lévi-Strauss observes, myth operates to mediate contradictions, and Anganghal negotiates the inequality of social hierarchy through familial affection and responsibility. In contrast to the Kshatriya ideals of classical Sanskrit epics or the heroic wrath shaping Greek epic, labour becomes the foundation of heroism. Khamba resolves “to go for the wage-earning” (2), presenting a vision of heroism rooted in humility and perseverance. One may observe similarities to the early chapters of the Mahabharata, where the exiled Pandavas earn their living through physical effort, yet Anganghal’s depic- tion maintains a distinctly Manipuri sensibility groun-ded in agrarian work. He- roism arises not from conquest but from the ability to endure and sustain others.
This section leads naturally to the transformative encounter in Prince Ching-khuba Naha Telheiba’s household. Anganghal writes, “A house with a cow byre full with cattle he saw inside... / ‘O richness! This is what it is,’ thought he and entered thus” (5). The imagery is reminiscent of the Indo-European epic tradition, in which the household stands as metaphor for cosmic order—visible in the concept of ‘oikos’ in Greek epic and ‘grihastha’ in Vedic culture. The encounter also has echoes of Odysseus entering Ithaca in disguise or Rama arriving in Janaka’s court before recognition. The prince is struck by Khamba’s presence, considering him “a deity… a paragon, a great distinctive victor” (6–7). Yet unlike the Greek or Sanskrit epic pattern in which divine lineage marks the hero, Anganghal allows recognition to arise from inner dignity and serene bearing. Frye’s idea of the “myth of descent” becomes relevant; the extraordinary is discovered in the seemingly ordinary.
Khamba’s meeting with Thoibee is rendered with symbolic restraint. The princess stands motionless, “Like wood soaked in quiet water… staring at Khamba, no obligation, no rejection” (7). Their encounter avoids overt romantic flourish, instead suggesting recognition at the level of destiny. Comparisons emerge naturally with Kalidasa’s Abhijna-nasakuntalam, Dante’s first sight of Beatrice, or the meeting of Paris and Helen, but Anganghal’s treatment avoids the sensational. Abhinavagupta’s explanation of ‘úânta rasa’ is useful here; the emotional tone aims for serenity rather than passion, portraying love as a harmonising force between individual and society.
In Book 2, “Khamba into Hiding Again,” the narrative introduces concealment as a central motif. Having defeated Nongban in wrestling, Khamba must remain concealed “from any Moirang man’s notice” (17). Khamnu hides him “like keeping neatly folded clothes / in store-basket hidden from… notice” (17). The simile underscores how domestic care, usually the domain of women, takes on mythic resonance. Similar narratives exist in the Bhagavata Purana, where Krishna’s safety depends on women’s careful protection, and in the Mahabharata, where Arjuna adopts disguise during exile. Lévi-Strauss’s analysis of myth as reconciling oppositions applies clearly: public recognition must temporarily yield to private preservation for the hero’s destiny to unfold.
Thoibee’s emotional turmoil is expressed in lyric metaphor: “O wasp bee from beyond neighborhood! My stranger beloved!”(18); her longing becomes sacred endurance rather than romantic despair. Like Pene- lope in Homer, Thoibee sustains the moral centre of the narrative. Her role is not one of passive waiting but custodianship of hope and ethical restraint. Anganghal therefore invests female agency with sublime significance, something often subdued in patriarchal epic traditions.
Book 3, “Kang Match,” locates the love narrative within a communal festival. The traditional Manipuri game of kang represents more than recreation; it becomes a symbolic encounter between destiny and social visibility. Princess Thoibee, “freshener of all seasons, / was the team leader of County North” (23). This context invites comparison with ritualised contests in epic tradition, such as the chariot race in Homer or the swayamvara of Ramayana, where social values and personal destiny intersect in public space. When Thoibee’s kang “fell down sleek intact from his (Khamba) clothes,” (26) the incident becomes fateful rather than accidental. Frye’s discussion of ritualised games in heroic narrative helps clarify the symbolic meaning: chance reveals truth, while public action exposes private emotion.
Thoibee’s defence of Khamba—”Do not flap clothes please; it will bring me / bad names only” (26)—parallels Draupadi’s public appeal in the Mahabharata, though with a significant difference. In Anganghal, it is women who act as protectors of honour, rather than supplicants’ dependent upon patriarchal mercy. The balance between ritual pressure and individual assertion is a key element of Anganghal’s narrative architecture.
In Book 4, “Een Fishing,” the poem expands into ecological symbolism. Loktak Lake is not backdrop but living participant in the narrative. The union of water and land “became genuine aquatic lotus flowers blooming / at the joining line between water and land” (28). The lotus, a symbol shared across Indian religion and art, signifies renewal. In Manipuri context, the lake and its rooted vegetation, the ‘phum’, are part of cultural memory and lived environment. When Khamba and Thoibee’s meeting on the lake, “on Khamba’s boat this phum happened to bump” (29), is structured as a moment of destiny rather than coincidence. The broken bows and the recognition that follows—marked by “the chain and the stole the lady and / the maid recognized” (30)—create a moment similar to Penelope’s recognition of Odysseus, or Rama and Sita reunited.
What is remarkable is the emotional restraint of the scene. The closing dialogue—”Look listen, little brother ibungo, your big sister / wants to tell you” (31)—uses idioms of kinship to shape love’s expression. This intertwining of familial and romantic language captures an ethical universe in which personal affection must coexist with community expectations. The poem continuously navigates between nature and society, desire and duty, and emotion and restraint.
Khamba Thoibee Sheireng differs from many epics in its narrative voice. Rather than a single, authoritative bard, the poem carries echoes of collective oral tradition, particularly that of ‘pena’ minstrels. This quality aligns with A. K. Ramanujan’s argument that Indian folklore is “context-sensitive,” meaning that myth and everyday life are intertwined. Anganghal’s narrative not only retells history and legend but preserves memory, cultural ethics, and landscape. Loktak Lake, Moirang hills, and cattle pastures form what modern ecocritical thought would call a bioregional imagination—identity anchored in soil, water, labour, ritual, and everyday speech. Khamba is therefore less a conqueror than a guardian of social and environmental balance, which distinguishes him from epic heroes such as Achilles or Beowulf.
When compared with global epic tradition, the poem participates in the shared pattern of the romance-epic, blending the forces of love, social rivalry, labour, nature, and moral education. It affirms duty and community like the Ramayana, shares the heightened emotional resonance of Greek epic, yet departs from both by elevating work and humility to heroic stature. Following Frye’s terminology, the narrative embodies the “mythos of spring,” moving from hardship toward renewal. The barren description of Moirang at the beginning eventually gives way to the fertile landscape of Loktak, symbolising restoration of balance between individuals and the world they inhabit.
Vimala Raina, in Khamba Thoibi and Poems on Manipur (1963), notes that the story appears to belong to the reign of Chingkhu Telheiba in “about 1302 AD… a labyrinth of stories and incidents interconnected with semi-historical and semi-mythological trends.” Suniti Kumar Chatterji, writing in N. Tombi Singh’s Khamba and Thoibi: The Unscaled Height of Love (1976), assigns the narrative to the time of King Loyamba in the twelfth century. Tombi Singh adds that “The immortal love story of Khamba and Thoibi is not a legend but a historical event.” Anganghal’s version begins with a devotional prologue invoking “Shri Gurudev,” “Shri Shri Shri Khamba Mahaprabu,” and “Shri Shri Shri Ksna,” indicating the presence of sacred resonance in the framing of the narrative. Sanasam’s 2016 translation, with its reorganisation into 43 parts and additional contextual materials on Anganghal’s life and legacy, presents the story anew for modern readers.
In conclusion, Khamba Thoibee Sheireng deserves its position within the world of major epic traditions. Anganghal creates a synthesis in which history, legend, ritual, and the insights of daily life are inseparable. The hero is not valorised for military conquest but for endurance, labour, and devotion. Thoibee is not merely an object of affection but a moral anchor whose voice shapes the ethical landscape of Moirang. Loktak Lake and the countryside of Manipur are not passive settings but active participants in human destiny. Through patterned narrative, symbolic inversion, and archetypal framing, Anganghal crafts an epic that is both deeply local and universally comprehensible. By humanising the sacred and sanctifying the ordinary, the poet places Moirang in the company of Ayodhya, Troy, Ithaca, and Hastinapura, while preserving for posterity the values, aesthetics, and living memory of Manipuri cultural imagination.
The writer is with Manipur College, Imphal and can be reached at [email protected]