Taming The Rude and Barbarous Tongues Of-The-Frontier-Bor-Saheps-Sutu-Saheps-And-Their-Encounters-With

Taming the ‘rude’ and ‘barbarous’ tongues
of the frontier: Bor Saheps, Sutu Saheps

and their encounters with languages,
scripts, and texts (1835–1904)
Deepak Naorem
Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, India
This article looks at an alternative history of colonial expansion in the North-East Frontier
region during the nineteenth century by exploring the crucial role of colonial officers deployed
there, who were locally known as Bor/bura saheps, sutu saheps or simply saheps. Scholarship
on these officials has studied their roles as diplomats, administrators and military commanders,
while this study instead examines their encounters with local languages, scripts and texts as well
as their linguistic projects in the former frontier state of Manipur. The region was described as a
recalcitrant frontier space, inhabited by ‘savages’ speaking ‘rude’ and ‘barbarous’ tongues. Yet
the saheps’ knowledge of its languages, scripts, and local literature was vital for information-
gathering as well as for their daily administrative work. This article raises questions about
the ramifications of these colonial linguistic projects on the process of colonial expansion and
consolidation and the concomitant establishment of language hegemony. It argues that the
early linguistic projects were not only an indispensable instrument for colonial conquest but
also produced rudimentary philological knowledge of the languages of the region, calcifying
differences and hierarchies along linguistic lines and contributing to the methodical state-funded
linguistic projects undertaken in the early twentieth century.
Keywords: North-East Frontier, political agents, script, language, British Empire, colonialism
Introduction
The concept of the North-East Frontier region emerged as a consequence of

Burmese aggressions in Bengal, and the subsequent attempts of the English East
India Company (EIC) authorities to contain their expansion in the area between the
Burmese and Company territories. The region included vast hilly tracts scattered
with a large number of hill-chiefdoms and other valley-based states such as Ahom,
Cachar, Manipur and Tripura. Early European travellers had ventured into the region
Acknowledgements: The author acknowledges the support of the Charles Wallace India Trust.
The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 59, 4 (2022): 471–506
SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC/Melbourne
DOI: 10.1177/00194646221130814
472 / Deepak Naorem
to collect information, especially to find a land route to Qing China and Burma
via Manipur.1 Diplomatic and political missions were established in the region in
the second half of the eighteenth century, and treaties were subsequently signed
between the local rulers and the EIC.2 The Burmese invasion during the early
decades of the nineteenth century brought this region even closer to the Company
authorities in Bengal. It was during this period that an officer was assigned to look
into the affairs of the territories in the North-East Frontier of the Bengal Presidency.
David Scott was appointed as the Political Agent to oversee the administration as
well as the relationship between the rulers of the region and the Company state
between 1802 and 1831.3 Scott was assisted by other officials like Charles Tucker
who later became the Political Agent to the Governor of Bengal for the region.4
After the Treaty of Yandabo (1826), the administrative machinery of the colonial
state became gradually yet firmly entrenched there.
Through a case study of Manipur, this article looks at the colonial officials,
Political Agents and their deputies, and District Collectors who were posted in
the North-East Frontier region to carry out various administrative, financial, and
diplomatic works for the colonial state. There is not much scholarship on the
history of these Political Agents and other officers. Recent historians have used
their writings—particularly diaries and tour reports—as important sources for
writing the history of the region, but look at them as administrators, diplomats
and military officers and study their role in various political events.5 This article
will not focus on their administrative and military duties, but will instead look at
their encounters with the languages, scripts, texts, and manuscripts in the region.
Knowledge of language and scripts and access to the literature of the region were
vital skills for collecting information about its inhabitants. Many European officers,
largely interested in expanding the commercial and political interests of the colonial
state, did not show much interest in exploring the languages, scripts, and literature
of the region. However, some of them displayed exceptional interest and wrote
extensive notes and compiled grammar, primers, vocabulary books, and catalogues
of literary texts from the region.
1
Early travellers and diplomats such as Father V. Sangermano, Gaetano M. Mantegazza, Michael
Symes, Henry Burney, Francis Buchanan and Thomas Welsh toured the region extensively and left
accounts which were later used by colonial officials as sources of information. For the earliest route map
between Bengal and Manchu China via Burma and Manipur see, ‘Rough route map with Moneypore
at centre’, Mss EUR F 218/35b, British Library, London, 1762.
2
Mackenzie, A History of the Relations, Appendix A, pp. 377–94. Mackenzie reproduced Captain
Welsh and Scott’s reports as Appendices in his book. For the earliest treaty between the Raja of Manipur
and East India Company see, ‘Papers of Harry Verelst, Governor of Fort William, Bengal’, India Office
Records (IOR)/H/739, BL, London, 1759–85; Home Department Public (HD), 4 October 1762, Nos
2–3, National Archives of India (NAI), New Delhi, 1762.
3
Barooah, David Scott in North-East India.
4
T. W. of Mr Tucker, Political Agent, R-1/S-B/283, Manipur State Archives (MSA), Imphal, 1829.
5
See Debī, British Political Agency; Dena, British Policy Towards Manipur.
Taming the ‘rude’ and ‘barbarous’ tongues of the frontier / 473
This article argues that such linguistic interests and projects were vital
instruments of the larger colonial project of political and commercial subjugation of
the region which they described as a recalcitrant frontier space. Thus, the colonial
expansion in the region was also an extensive linguistic venture, which attempted
to establish what Vélaz-Ibáñez describes as ‘hegemonies of language’, through a
set of processes meant to ‘end, bend and twist a conquered population’s means
of communication’ and to erase and replace them with a more pliant literary and
documentary tradition.6 These early ‘colonial linguistics’ played a significant role
in accumulating and inventing linguistic knowledge for consolidating differences
based on language in the region.7 Errington places such linguistic studies within the
main objectives of colonialism, which fixed languages and their speakers and textual
practices in colonial yet natural hierarchies.8 This contributed to the re-ordering of
colonised societies on linguistic lines, creating unequal relations of power between
the colonised and the coloniser, and within the colonised societies. This article
concurs with Rachael Gilmour’s argument in the context of European colonialism
in Africa that colonialism and missionary success depended to a great extent on
linguistic appropriation, extensive study of local languages, representation of
languages and their speakers, and compiling grammars, dictionaries, and treatises.9
Finally, it also shows that colonial interventions in the frontier regions and princely
states were not limited, and they did not leave most cultural aspects of colonised
societies untouched.
Residents, Political Agents, and ‘Indirect Rule’ in the British Empire
A large area outside British India—often subsumed as Princely India—consisted of

many local states that were governed indirectly by colonial officials called Residents
and Political Agents. They indirectly administered these states of various sizes by
advising the local ruler and chieftains.10 This system of ‘indirect rule’ developed
gradually in the mid-eighteenth century, as an efficient model to extend colonisation
or some form of colonial control without the obligation of bearing the political
and economic costs which accompanied direct annexation and rule. According to
Michael Fisher, we need to foreground the role of these Political Agents and the
Residents in order to understand the nature of what historians called ‘indirect rule’,
as they were the ‘men on the spot’ who interpreted, enacted, and implemented
colonial policies in these states.11
6
Vélaz-Ibáñez, Hegemonies of language, p. 17.
7
Errington, ‘Colonial Linguistics’, pp. 19–39.
8
idem., Linguistics in a Colonial World, p. viii.
9
Gilmour, Grammars of Colonialism.
10
Fisher, ‘Indirect Rule in the British Empire’, p. 393.
11
Ibid., p. 403.
474 / Deepak Naorem
There are several studies of the princely states and their administration by the
British Empire under the indirect system.12 Most look at relations between these
officials and various princely courts and their roles in the functioning of these
states.13 By the end of the eighteenth century, these officers served in a bureau in
the colonial administration called the Political Line, which was formalised as the
Indian Political Service in 1937. This service was regarded with disdain by other
officials even though between 1780 and 1858, officers of the Political Line helped
the colonial state acquire vast territories, and subsequently helped in maintaining
these territories for the colonial administration.14 These people were either military
officials or civil officers before they joined the Political Line. Most of the Political
Agents and other officers posted in the North-East Frontier region, including in the
princely state of Manipur, were military officers.15 This was due to the politically
recalcitrant nature of imperial frontiers. David Ludden has commented that ‘on
imperial margins, the complexity and ambiguity of imperial time and space appear
more clearly’.16 Hence the process of governance, border-making and demarcating
boundaries between the imperial and ‘savage’ territories in frontier spaces remained
contentious, shifting, complex, and routinely violent.17
According to Fisher, the relationship between the Political Agents and Indian
rulers was always contentious.18 Some Indian rulers considered themselves to be
superior to the colonial officers and wanted to control them and their activities.
Moreover, the local rulers developed strategies to defend their interests and authority
from encroachment by the colonial state. At the same time, the Political Agents
and the Residents loathed their ill-treatment, their isolation from the court and
the administration of the state, and the lack of cooperation by the local rulers and
court officials.19 After 1858, colonial policies and attitudes towards the princely
12
See Ramusack, The Princes of India in the Twilight of Empire; Jeffrey, People, Princes and
Paramount Power; Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes; Desai, History of the British
Residency in Burma; Pradhan, Brian Hodgson at the Kathmandu Residency; Yapp, Strategies of British
India. Britain, Iran and Afghanistan; Onley, ‘The Raj Reconsidered’.
13
Fisher, ‘British Expansion in North India’; Panikkar, British Diplomacy in North India; Sarojini
Regani, Nizam–British Relations, I724–1857; Yazdani, Hyderabad During the Residency of Henry
Russell.
14
Fisher, ‘Indirect Rule in the British Empire’, p. 398.
15
Kamei, A History of Modern Manipur, pp. 32–3. There is no comprehensive evidence yet to
suggest that military officers were preferred in the frontier region as a policy. However, an array of
incidental references suggests that most of the Political Agents and officers posted in the region in the
nineteenth century were military officers and this indicates a pattern which is difficult to dismiss. They
were however gradually replaced by I.C.S. officers since the early decades of the twentieth century
when the region was brought under more direct colonial administration.
16
Ludden, ‘The Process of Empire’, p. 148.
17
Simpson, ‘Bordering and Frontier-making’, pp. 513–42.
18
Fisher, ‘British Expansion in North India’, pp. 69–82.
19
Sen, ‘The Maharana and the Bhils’, pp. 157–72. Similarly, Political Agents of Manipur also
constantly complained about their ill-treatment by the Maharaja and the Durbar. For example, James
states began to change, and a clearer notion of indirect rule was established.
It was also promoted as the model of British administration in other colonies and
was extended to the frontier regions as well as other parts of the British Empire in
Malaya and East Africa.
The Political Agency in Manipur State
The earliest contacts between the EIC and various political systems in the North-
East Frontier region can be dated to the second half of the eighteenth century.
Diplomatic as well as exploratory missions were sent to various parts of the region,
including the royal courts.20 The shadow of Burmese expansionism brought the
region politically closer to the authorities of the EIC. The first Anglo-Burmese War
and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 was a major watershed as far as the expansion
of British colonialism in the region was concerned. David Scott served as the first
Political Agent of the North-East Frontier to the Governor of Bengal. Along with
Charles Tucker, he played a key role in the expansion of the colonial state in this
frontier region during the early decades of the early nineteenth century. This article
focuses on the princely state of Manipur, the Political Agency of Manipur state,
and the Political Agents and their assistants who served in the kingdom after the
Treaty of Yandabo. In local records such as the Cheitharon Kumpapa (the court
chronicle), the Political Agents were addressed as Bor or Bura Saheps (Political
Agents), and other officers as Sutu Saheps (Assistant Political Agents), Firingki
(foreigner) Saheps or simply Saheps.21
Land revenue, coal, tea plantations, a shorter land route to Qing China, and
the desire to contain Burmese incursions drove the EIC to expand into Manipur
and the surrounding regions. Their expansion was resisted by what Europeans
described as unruly landscapes, an inhospitable climate, mosquitoes, strange rituals
and traditions, and gibberish ‘rude’ tongues spoken by the local population. The
Johnstone often expressed his anger when British officers were made to sit in lower-level seats during
public events like the annual boat race, while the Maharaja and his family sat on elaborate lofty platforms.
He believed that this was an insult to the British Government. Similarly, in another instance, he asserted
that the Maharaja should himself receive the Political Agents whenever they arrive in the state, which
the Durbar refused to accept. Dairy of Sir James Johnstone, R-1/S-C/265, MSA, 1877–1886, pp. 191–4.
20
Johnstone, Captain Welsh’s expedition to Assam. Captain Thomas Welsh of the Bengal Army was
sent on several expeditions to the Ahom court in 1792, 1793 and 1794.
21
For the English translation of the court text Cheitharon Kumpapa see Parratt, The Court Chronicle,
3 vols. There are also other translations and transliterations of the texts such as Singh and Singh’s
four-volume transliteration in the Assamese–Bengali script titled Cheitharol Kumbaba and Nepram’s
English translation titled The Cheitharol Kumbaba. The author consulted these three translations of the
court record as well as the official palace copy of the manuscripts. Unless there are inconsistencies in
the different translations and transliterations as well as in the original manuscript, I have cited Parratt’s
translations since they are widely accessible. The official palace manuscript of the text is in the custody
of Pundit Ngariyanbam Kulachandra in Imphal. Copies of the manuscripts are also in the custody of
Thongngam Madhab, Nameirakpam Dinachandra and Kharaibam Deva in Imphal.
476 / Deepak Naorem
company state needed to collect information and, in the process, came into contact
with various state formations in the region, leading to the signing of treaties between
the EIC and these states. The kingdom of Manipur signed its first treaty with the
EIC on 14 September 1762, which was ratified in 1763. Mr Harry Verelst, the Chief
of Chittagong Factory, signed on behalf of the EIC and Yipungsi Ananda Sai the
lakpa (chief) of Khwai as well as clerks Hari Das Gossain and Jaganath Das were
the representatives of Meetingu (lit. ‘lord of the Meeteis’, a title used by the rulers
of the Manipur state) Chingthangkhomba of Manipur, also titled Raja Jai Singh.22
It was during the signing of the first treaty that the officers of the EIC encountered
a writing system from the region which was unknown to them, in a royal letter
from the Meetingu, written in the old Meetei mayek (script) which was presented
to the company representatives.23 Afterwards, several references to the region and
the state began to be included in various encyclopaedias and maps produced in
British India as well as in Europe.24 Most of this literature lamented the lack of
information about the inhabitants of the region, especially their languages which
European writers assumed were different from the languages spoken in the civilised
world. The region was relatively unknown to the Europeans until then, and there
were few documentations of the region in the Mughal sources that they could rely
on. The languages spoken in the region were also relatively unknown to most of the
Europeans and Bengali servants of the Company state and were often described in
these texts and accounts as ‘rude’, ‘barbaric’, ‘meagre’ and ‘gibberish’.25
The Treaty of Yandabo led to the annexation of Cachar and Assam. However,
the independence of Manipur state was recognised by the Burmese and Company
states. A British officer was temporarily retained in the state to oversee the transition.
David Scott and later Charles Tucker the Chief Commissioner of Sylhet were given
the charge of looking after the affairs of the state. Considering its vulnerability to
future Burmese incursions and its strategic location, Lord William Bentinck in his
minute dated 25 March 1833 suggested stationing a small garrison of British troops
until the state could defend itself from the Burmese.26 Two treaties were signed
with Raja Gambhir Singh in 1833 and 1834, fixing the boundaries of the state with
22
Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol 1, p. 173; Nos. 2–3, Public, 4 October 1762, HD, NAI; Papers
of Harry Verelst, Governor of Fort William, Bengal, IOR/H/739, BL, 1759–1785.
23
There are multiple spellings of the word such as Meetei, Meitei and Meithei, etc. I will however
be using one spelling (i.e., Meetei) consistently, unless it is part of a direct quote in the main text.
24
Hamilton, ‘An Account of Assam’, pp. 261–5; Idem, ‘An Account of the map of the countries’,
pp. 262–63; Symonds, An Introduction to the Geography, p. 345; Symes, An Account of an Embassy
to the Kingdom of Ava, pp. 1–3; Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, pp. 92–4; Brooke, General
Gazetteer; Walker, The Universal Gazetteer; Guthrei, Grammar, p. 83; Malte-Brun, Universal
Geography, p. 345; Hamilton, The East-India Gazetteer, pp. 477–9; M’Cosh, Topography of Assam,
pp. 157–9; Ripley and Dana, The New American Cyclopaedia, p. 626.
25
Primrose, A Manipuri Grammar, Preface; Brown, ‘Comparison of Indo-Chinese Languages’,
pp. 1023–37; Marsden, Numismata Orientalia Illustrata, pp. 801–03.
26
Mackenzie, A History, pp. 150–1.
the Company territories in Cachar.27 On 7 February 1835, Lord Bentinck stated

the necessity to retain an officer permanently in the position of a Political Agent in
Manipur, and he even suggested Lieutenant George Gordon as the first appointee.28
An order was subsequently passed to maintain a Political Agency in Manipur and
Captain Gordon was appointed as its first Political Agent. After the long tenure of
Major William McCulloch, the second Political Agent, in February 1861 the Civil
Finance Commission of the Government of India proposed the abolition of the
Manipur Political Agency citing financial reasons. They did not have any intention
of appointing a successor to McCulloch, who wrote a lengthy memorandum on 18
July 1861 detailing the importance of the Political Agency in the frontier state.29
Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh and Major McCulloch expressed their disagreement
with the government’s plan to transfer the duties of the Political Agent in Manipur
to the Superintendent of Cachar.30 The Superintendent of Cachar, Captain Robert
Stewart himself expressed the unfeasibility of overseeing the affairs of Manipur
which is far away from Cachar and separated by highlands, and he insisted that a
European officer should be stationed in the capital of Manipur to oversee its political
affairs.31 Considering all these opinions, it was eventually decided to retain the
Political Agency in 1861. However, its abolition was discussed again in 1863, and
the Agency records were accordingly moved to Sylhet. But the presence of a large
number of exiled Meetei princes in Cachar and Sylhet, who were looking for an
opportunity to return to Manipur to usurp the throne with Burmese support, was
seen by the Government of India as a serious issue which might create instability
in the frontier region.32 Hence the Indian government decided to restore the
Political Agency of Manipur. The order passed by the government in April 1864
observed that:
The past history of the country shows that no Chief has been able to manage the
people: they have one and all proved cruel, oppressive, and weak. The country
has been the scene of civil wars, murders, devastations, and misery under the
nominal control of the Chief; while as a rule, peace, order, and comparative
prosperity reigned while a British Agent was present [….] Both the Chief himself
and his people desire to have a British Agent among them, they have told Captain
Stewart that the presence of one is equal to a brigade as regards the security of
the country. The Governor-General in Council is, therefore, of the opinion that
it is expedient that there should be an Agent at Manipur.33
27
Ibid., p. 151.
28
Singh, Hijam Irabot, p. 17; Mackenzie, A History of the Relations, pp. 152–3.
29
Mackenzie, A History, pp. 155–7.
30
Ibid., p. 158
31
Ibid., p. 158.
32
File No. 216/292, December 1869, Foreign Political Proceeding (FPP), NAI, 1869, pp. 72, 100–1.
33
File No. 111, April 1864, FPP, NAI; Also cited in Mackenzie, A History, p. 159.
478 / Deepak Naorem
Colonel McCulloch—now promoted—was reappointed as the Political Agent of

Manipur state after the restoration of the Agency. According to colonial accounts,
the appointment of the Political Agent was considered a necessity, and was desired
by the local rulers and people, due to the turbulent political conditions such as the
continuous Burmese threat and raids carried out by many itinerant tribes from the
eastern borders. The Political Agents, by advising the local rulers were supposed
to ensure strict implementation and adherence to the colonial policies in the state,
but and any deviation from the colonial policies by the local states and their rulers
was considered as defiance and treachery by the colonial administration.34 The
Political Agency was like a trojan horse, whose purpose was to safeguard and push
the political and financial interests of the colonial state.
Taming the Languages: Compiling Dictionaries,

Assembling Grammar, and Collecting puyas
The Political Agents played a significant role in collecting information, documenting,

and mapping the region, leading to the creation of volumes of different genres of
literature on the region and its population.35 Along with other subjects, they were
interested in studying the languages, scripts, and literature of the region, which
they considered significant for studying its social and political systems. Historian
Gangmumei Kamei noted that,
…the British officers who participated in the Anglo-Burmese War and who
helped Manipur in the reconstruction of the country were…not only bold
soldiers and capable administrative officers; they were great writers who left
behind excellent reports on geography, history, culture, and many ethnological
accounts….36
Before the Political Agents, it was ethnographers and travellers like Francis
Buchanan who documented and wrote extensively on the languages of the
34
Annual Administrative Report of Manipur Agency (AARMA), R-3/S-3, MSA, 1874–75,
pp. 7–13. For example, regarding its relations with the Lushais, Kamhaus, and Suktes, the Manipuri
administration was expected to act upon the interest of the colonial state, and not according to its
strategic need for settling the disturbances in the eastern borders and pacifying the recalcitrant tribes.
The policy to be followed by Manipur concerning the Lushais and other frontier tribes was also laid
down by the government in a letter to Dr Brown. Deviation from the colonial policies by the officials of
Manipur state during the Lushai Expedition of 1871–72 was condemned as disobedience and treachery
by the colonial administration. The Political Agent (acting) W. F. Nuthall had to explain to the colonial
administration his failure to enforce colonial policies regarding the relations between Manipur state
and the frontier tribes. Letter No. 1127 P, No. 275, 30 June 1870, FPP, NAI, 1870; Nuthall, Despatches
and Correspondences of Major-General W F Nuthall.
35
Johnstone, My Experience in Manipur and the Naga Hills; McCulloch, Account of the Valley of
Munnipore and of the Hill tribes; Brown, Statistical Account of the Native State of Manipur.
36
Kamei, Lectures on History, p. 19.
region. He published a report called A Comparative Vocabulary of the Languages

Spoken in the Burma Empire in 1799, in the fifth volume of Asiatic Researches.
This text was one of the first major surveys of the languages of Burma and the
surrounding area, which would later be classified as Tibeto-Burman languages. It
provided important data on the ethnocultural identities of the various populations
of the region. Buchanan tried to link the physical features of the inhabitants
of the region with the languages they spoke, hence associating language with
race. He also claimed that the distribution of different languages spoken in
the region was ‘the surest guide in tracing the migrations and connections
between nations’.37 His work listed the languages spoken around the Burmese
Empire, especially on its frontiers, including Kathee Shawn (also Moitay Kabo)
According to him, Kathee Shawn were the inhabitants of Kabo, a small valley
inhabited by people who moved into the region from the surrounding areas such
as the Imphal valley. The Burmese referred to Manipur as Cussay or Kathee.38
Buchanan talked about the similarities between the vocabularies and languages
of the people of Kabo and Moitay (Meeteis) of Manipur.39 According to him,
this was because Kabo and the people inhabiting the region had been subjects to
the Kings of Munnypura in the past although they were under the jurisdiction of
the Burmese when he was writing his report in 1799.40 He listed the languages
spoken in Kabo and Imphal valley as languages of the Burmese empire. Hence,
he saw these regions and the languages spoken in these regions as an extension
of the Burmese empire and civilisation, an argument that would be reiterated
by many colonial scholars including George A. Grierson.41 He also prepared
a vocabulary of 50 Moitay (Meetei) words along with their translations in
English.42 His intention for writing this report and compiling the vocabularies
of various languages in the regions was to conduct a comparative study of the
languages of the region and to look into the historical and cultural relationships
between various communities in the Burmese empire. This is one of the earliest
attempted comparative vocabularies of the languages of the region. A large
number of comparative vocabularies were subsequently produced as a part of
linguistic ethnology, whose main objective was to study historical relations
among nations or communities through a comparative study of their languages,
especially their vocabularies. 43 This method became very popular among
linguistic scholars in the region.
37
Buchanan, ‘A Comparative Vocabulary’, p. 219–40.
38
James Rennell’s map of 1788 (A map of Hindoostan) also mentions Cossay as a name of the state.
39
Buchanan, ‘A Comparative Vocabulary’, p. 226.
40
Ibid., p. 227.
41
Correspondence between Morgan Webb and L. F. Taylor, S/1/13/2, IOR, BL, 1899–1921.
42
Buchanan, ‘A Comparative Vocabulary’, pp. 228–29.
43
Trautmann, ‘India and the Study of Kingship’, pp. 559–71.
480 / Deepak Naorem
During the early nineteenth century, there were various unsuccessful attempts to
map the Meetei language (Meeteilon) and its literary and documentary cultures.44
For example in the 1820s, William Marsden, in his self-published report on the coins
of the region, discussed the inscriptions on the coins of the kings of Manipur and
described the languages of these inscriptions as barbarous and rude.45 Missionaries
were also highly interested in the languages and scripts of the region since literacy
was a homiletical necessity for the Christian missionaries and churches who were
competing to save the ‘heathen’ souls in the region. It is beyond the scope of this
article to discuss their linguistic projects, but suffice to say they shared similar
opinions with the colonial officers about the languages in the region. In 1827 William
Carrey, who translated the New Testament into Meeteilon, described the languages
of the region as ‘inartificial in structure, and uninflected’, and ‘closer to the rude
languages of the savages inhabiting the hills such as the Khasis’.46 Throughout the
nineteenth century, missionaries of various denominations pushed for the adoption
of the Roman script and English education, and this was even outlined in the 1853
Baptist Educational strategy.47
Missionaries of various denominations were active in the neighbouring
regions of Assam, the Naga Hills, the Lushai Hills and the Chin Hills, compiling
grammars, primers, vocabulary books, and orthographies and translating the New
Testament into several languages.48 They were however banned from entering
and carrying out proselytising work in most princely states including Manipur.49
In their absence, it was left to the officers of the Manipur Political Agency to
study and document the languages and literature of the region. Missionaries
were only partially allowed to enter Manipur state during the last decade of the
nineteenth century.
Why were the colonial officials and ethnographers keen to study the languages,
scripts, and literature of the region? Collecting information and access to local
information networks were critical for the survival of the colonial state. The nature of
languages in the region also made it more important to study them. They frequently
commented that these were different from the languages spoken in the rest of the
subcontinent and were more similar to the languages spoken in Burma and other
parts of South-East Asia. It was not just the topography of the region that made
it difficult to expand the colonial state; the languages were also a major obstacle.
The Political Agents and other colonial officials had to rely on an army of local
informants, interpreters and dobhashis (bilingual translators) to gain access to the
44
Campbell, Specimens of the languages of India, p. 314; Dalton, Descriptive ethnology of Bengal,
p. 340.
45
Marsden, Numismata Orientalia, pp. 801–3.
46
‘The Bible of Every land’, p. 14.
47
Longkumer, ‘Along Kingdom’s Highway’, pp. 169–70.
48
Joshi, A Matter of Belief; May, Welsh Missionaries.
49
Singh, History of the Christian Missions in Manipur, p. 37.
local information networks and knowledge of the region.50 However, their distrust
of the local informant class made it necessary for them to tame the languages,
scripts, and literature of the region by compiling dictionaries, primers, vocabulary
texts, and grammar and translating, transliterating, and transcribing the literature
of the region. These literary projects also led to the classification of the languages,
scripts, and literature of the region into families, groups, and sub-groups, which
subsequently emerged as taxonomic tropes.
Colonial empires across the world adopted policies to keep peripheral frontier
regions and societies on the edge of their territories. Benjamin Hopkins argues
that societies in the ‘savage periphery’ were considered too nomadic, violent,
savage, and communal to be directly incorporated into the core of the colonial
state and pose a threat to the civilised order established in the formal colonies.
Yet the colonial state found such regions, societies, and resources indispensable
to their security and commercial interests.51 They were kept outside, yet close to
the colonial state, which also necessitated the accumulation of intimate knowledge
of the region. The presence of scripts and writing systems in the region created
great anxiety for the missionaries and the functionaries of the colonial state, who
believed that societies in the region were not meant to have developed scripts
and writing systems. Anthropologists followed social evolutionist theories for a
long time, which perpetuated a progressivist and teleological understanding of
how human societies evolved and this included writing systems. For example,
Lewis Henry Morgan argued that an advanced literate tradition is an indication of
a well-advanced civilisation.52 Societies in the ‘savage periphery’ were not meant
to develop scripts and literacy. Colonial empires designated the scripts and literate
traditions which they encountered in regions like West Africa and the North-East
frontier as ‘half breed’, insinuating their borrowing from more advanced societies
or simply dismissed them as ‘savage literacy’.53 It thus became imperative for the
colonial state to study and command authority over—and therefore control—‘savage
literacy’.
The first attempt to meticulously study the languages of Manipur—especially
Meeteilon—and to compile a proper dictionary and vocabulary was made by
the first Political Agent, Lt (later Captain) George Gordon, who was directed
by the Bengal government to compile these for the use of servants of the EIC
posted in the region. He published a report in The Calcutta Christian Observer in
1834 based on his study of the languages and scripts of the region. He observed
anomalies between the languages spoken in the region and the script which
was used for writing them, and suggested the use of the Roman alphabet for
state business. First, he speculated that the Meetei alphabet was derived from
50
Panmei, ‘State and Indigenous Intermediaries’; Son-Doerschel, ‘The Role of Informants’, pp. 3–4.
51
Hopkins, Ruling the Savage Periphery, pp. 1–12.
52
Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 31.
53
Kelly, ‘The Invention, Transmission’, p. 198.
482 / Deepak Naorem
the Assamese–Bengali lipi (script) and differed only in the forms of its various
letters. He also hinted at a possible Sanskrit origin of the language and script but
noted that the script contained many letters with sounds that do not exist in the
spoken language, and that there are many sounds used in the language in Imphal
Valley which are not represented in the script. He wanted to have more access
to the court scribes and the manuscripts of court records to understand how they
were using the script to write the language. Second, he also speculated that the
literary language used for writing the texts in the court was different from the
spoken language. This resulted in the dual classification of Meeteilon into its
archaic form which was used in the texts and modern form which was spoken in
the mid-nineteenth century. Gordon argued that his officials and clerks did not
need to learn the old language and the Meetei script at that moment, as it would
render it difficult for his office to function smoothly. He suggested applying ‘the
Roman character directly to the sounds in the language, without any reference to
those represented by an alphabet which was originally constructed to represent
the sounds contained in a foreign tongue, to which the Manipuri language has
scarcely any relation’.54
Gordon ventured that there could be one grand plan to apply the Roman character
to all sounds in the languages found in India proper which are related to Sanskrit,
Persian, Hindui (probably Hindustani) and Arabic. He developed 28 sounds with
Roman characters using single and double vowels to represent the sounds in
Meeteilon: k, g, q, c, j, s, t, d, n, p, b, m, y, r, l, w, h, a, e, i, o, oo, u, ai, ei, oe, ao
and uoo. According to him, there is no sound in the language that represents q or
chh, and instead there is another sound that is represented by ng. For Gordon, it
was important to be familiar with such nuances of sounds and tones of the language
to learn to read and write it by employing minimal diacritical marks. His report
also emphasised the similarities between Meeteilon and surrounding languages
like Burmese, Siamese, and other Indo-Chinese languages. One similarity which
he pointed out was that words in the languages from the region acquire different
meanings according to the tone or key of voice in which they are pronounced. He
observed that the high and low tone pronunciation of words in Meeteilon created
different meanings. 55
He taught many Manipuris who did not know any script besides Meetei mayek
(script), and those few who knew Assamese–Bengali lipi, to read and write
Meeteilon with Roman characters. He planned to create a cadre of Manipuris who
could copy and transliterate or transcribe the puyas (local texts) and other court
records from the Meetei mayek to the Roman alphabet, so that it would be easier
for the Europeans and the Bengali clerks to learn the language, and subsequently
54
Gordon, ‘Religion and Government of Manipur’, pp. 377–8.
55
Ibid., p. 380.
translate the local texts into English.56 By teaching them the Roman script alongside
the English language, he believed that he could prevail upon the locals to acquire
the manners and demeanours of Englishmen.57
Similarly, officials in Calcutta also stressed that if the Roman alphabet and
English education were introduced to the young raja of the state, he would grow
up to become like Peter the Great of Russia, oriental yet enlightened.58 They
iterated the importance of educating the young raja Chandrakirti Singh at an early
age before the court Brahmins could poison his thoughts with their vile religious
fanatism. The Governor-General Lord William Bentinck took a keen interest in
his English education, writing letters and sending him books, gifts, and toys.59 The
English Education Act of 1835 was effected by Lord William Bentinck himself, and
its cultural and political reverberations also reached frontier states like Manipur.
Gordon and the royal tutor Harish Chandra wrote to Calcutta that by educating
the ruling elites of the state with English and the Roman alphabet, it would be
possible to civilise the population of the state and the neighbouring tribes under
the raja’s control.60
Gordon also valued the local texts (puyas) to learn about the history of
the region, rather than relying on what his local informants shared with him.
He felt that mastering the languages of the region by compiling a dictionary
and a grammar book was key to accessing the knowledge and literature of
the region. This resulted in his project of compiling an English-Bengali-
Meeteilon dictionary, where each word was given in three languages, though
Bengali and Meeteilon translations of the words were written with the
Roman alphabet using the transcription method he had developed for writing
Meeteilon. He was assisted in this project by the raja’s tutor Harish Chandra
and his informants Ganissor and Brijabasi.61 The final draft of his dictionary
was published in 1837 by the Baptist Mission Press in Calcutta and it was
widely circulated. A letter to the India Political Department, dated 24 January
1838, specified the purchase of 25 copies of his dictionary for `250. These
copies were to be dispatched to various libraries in England and British India
for linguistic scholars and civil servants who were anticipating a position
in the region (Figure 1).62
56
Ibid., p. 380.
57
The Calcutta Christian Observer (CCO), Vol. IV, 1835, pp. 264–487.
58
The CCO, Vol. V, 1836, pp. 111–9.
59
The CCO, Vol. IV, 1835, pp. 264–487.
60
‘Education of the Young Raja of Manipur’, The CCO, Vol. VI, 1837, p. 252.
61
Ibid., p. 252.
62
‘Manipuri Dictionary by Captain Gordon purchased’, India Office Records (IOR), Z/E/4/M633,
Entry No 5/1838/paras 149 and 150: 1839–42
484 / Deepak Naorem
Figure 1. Cover and First Page of the Dictionary Compiled by Captain
Gordon and Published in 1837 from Calcutta.
Source: Gordon.63
Compiling the First Meeteilon Grammar

After Gordon, other Political Agents also showed interest in the languages, scripts
and literature of the region, commenting on them in their tour diaries, administrative
reports, and gazettes.64 In 1859, Major McCulloch the second Political Agent
compiled a comparative vocabulary of languages of Manipur and other languages.
Appendix 1 of his widely circulated text is a comparative vocabulary of Munniporee,
Undro, Sengmai, Chairel, Meeyang, Koupooee Pooeeron, Koupooee Songboo,
Quoireng, Khoonggoee, Phudang, Koopome, Tukaimee, Muram, Murring, Anal
Namfau, Kookie, Burmese, and Shan languages.65 All the words he used from
these languages were transcribed in the Roman script and were intended to help
him, his successors in the Agency, and other Europeans visiting the region in
navigating the numerous languages of the state. Dr Robert Brown, while largely
keeping himself busy with the daily administration of the Agency and settling the
Eastern and Southern boundaries of the state, was also curious about the languages,
63
Gordon, A Dictionary.
64
Dairy of Sir James Johnstone, R-1/S-C/265, MSA, 1877–1886; Dairy of Lieutenant-Colonel H.
St. P. Maxwell, Political Agent in Manipur and Superintendent of the State, R-1/S-A/29, MSA, 1896;
Dairy of Major H. St. P. Maxwell, Political Agent, Manipur from 27 September 1891, Lib/R007/S3/79,
Assam State Archives (ASA), Dispur, 1891; AARMA, R-3/S-3, MSA.
65
McCulloch, Account of the Valley of Munnipore, pp. iv–xliii.
scripts, and texts. He was particularly interested in the court records and wanted
them to be accessible to the Agency through translations. Along with his assistants,
he consulted the court records and enquired about the languages and scripts used
and the feasibility of directly accessing and translating them. He wanted to find
out if the court records were written in Devanagari or Assamese–Bengali lipi, in
which case they could be easily translated or transliterated and made available for
the Political Agency’s officials. However, he was disappointed when the Assistant
Political Agent reported that the court records were written in Meeteilon and
Meetei mayek, which would be difficult to translate for him at that moment.66 It
appears that the court was extremely reluctant to give the colonial administration
direct or easy access to its records. This also shows that establishing a colonial
language hegemony was a complicated process and not absolute, in line with Vélaz-
Ibàñez’s argument for another imperial frontier that was a ‘fragile, incomplete and
dialectical’ process, which the colonised societies contested, appropriated and even
collaborated with.67
Captain Henry Damant was posted as the Political Agent of Manipur (acting)
between 1875 and 1877. He showed considerable interest in the study of languages,
scripts and literature of the region, and his linguistic and literary studies clearly
demonstrated the contentious nature of colonial linguistic projects. Unable to
secure himself a language teacher, Damant petitioned the Durbar to provide him
with a scribe to teach him the language and script used for writing in the court.68
A court scribe named Thoutam Chaopaton was given a royal decree by Maharaja
Chandrakirti to teach Damant the script and the language, and help him read and
translate texts like Takhel Ngamba (Conquest of Takhel) and Samsok Ngamba
(Conquest of Samsok).69 He subsequently published his work in the journals of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
between 1875 and 1879, and his observations eventually helped his successors to
compile a full-fledged grammar as well as translations of many texts.70 When he
began his study, he lamented that the grammar of the language was practically
unknown and only a few Europeans had some acquaintance with it. It was also
extremely difficult for him and his subordinates in the Agency to gain access to
the court records and other literary texts. He was aware of only one text on the
languages and scripts of the region, although some of his predecessors had written
short notes or a few paragraphs in their tour diaries and administrative reports.71
66
Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol. 3 p. 155.
67
Vélaz-Ibàñez, Hegemonies of language, p. 17.
68
Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol. 3, pp. 184–5.
69
Ibid., pp. 184–5.
70
Damant, ‘Note on the old Manipuri Character’, pp. 36–7; idem, ‘Notes on Manipuri Grammar’,
pp. 178–81; idem, ‘Notes on the Locality and population of the tribes’, pp. 228–58.
71
Damant, ‘Notes on Manipuri Grammar’, p. 178.
486 / Deepak Naorem
The text he was referring to was the dictionary compiled by Captain Gordon in
1837, which he found a copy of with great difficulty.
In these studies, languages without script or grammar were associated with
savages or the barbaric tribes of the frontier region. For Europeans like Damant,
a written language with its peculiar script was something of an anomaly in the
frontier region which had been represented as an oral landscape in most colonial
accounts.72 It was surprising for him to encounter a literate tradition in a region
inhabited by communities that colonial officers considered as wild, head-hunting
‘savages’ speaking ‘rude’ tongues. Even Thomas Callan Hodson, writing decades
later, was astonished to find a ‘literate tradition among these illiterate people’ of
the frontier.73 Damant doubted whether the scripts found in the region were indeed
able to write these languages and remained uncertain about whether Meeteilon had
a written literary culture, even after collecting manuscripts of several texts from
the region. The oralisation of colonised societies was a significant element of a
systematic process of creating a binary between the ‘primitive’ and the ‘civilised’.
Thomas Patterson argues that such binaries were employed by European empires to
legitimise their colonial conquests throughout the world and were integral to the rise
of modern European nation-states.74 Hence to invent western civilisation, it became
essential for colonial empires to also invent barbarian societies, with orality as one
of the chief traits of the latter. Elizabeth H. Boone and Walter D. Mignolo, in the
context of Mesoamerica and the Andes, argue that colonised societies were produced
in colonial documentations as strictly oral so that new literary regimes could be
introduced in these societies, which contributed to the process of colonisation and
conversion to Christianity.75 It was a process of creating a clean slate, on which
more pliant histories and identities of the colonised could be rewritten.
Damant’s doubts about the script and the literate tradition were amplified when he
found certain alleged anomalies in the 35-letter Meetei script which he encountered
in the manuscripts. Echoing Gordon, he argued that the Meetei script was ill-adapted
to write Meeteilon. He noted that the letters g, gh, chh, j, jh and all the gutturals ñ, d,
dh, b, bh, and sh were seldom used in the manuscripts and only for words imported
from Bengali and Sanskrit. Further, there are sounds that exist distinctly in Meeteilon
but were not represented in the script.76 Most of the colonial ethnographers similarly
doubted the indigeneity of scripts used in the region, and considered them to be
borrowed and incongruent. Damant reiterated Captain Gordon’s observation that
the Meetei script is a form of the Devanagari script, and was probably introduced
from Bengal by wandering sanyasis during the reign of Meetingu Charairongba
72
Ibid., p. 179.
73
Letter form T. C. Hodson to G.A. Grierson dated 22 March 1900, S/1/4/11, LSI, IOR, BL,
1899–1927.
74
Patterson, Inventing Western Civilisation, p. 47.
75
Boone and Mignolo, Writing Without Words.
76
Damant, ‘Note on the old Manipuri Character’, pp. 36–7.
(r. 1697–1709) who had patronised Vaishnavism.77 He hypothesised that the language
was not a written one, and it began to be written only when a script was introduced
from Bengal. He, however, argued that such imported scripts—including the
Assamese–Bengali script which gained popularity in the region in the second half
of the nineteenth century—were not suitable for writing the languages of this region.
Two dominant tropes emerged in the colonial accounts. The region was either
depicted as lacking writing systems, scripts, and literary or documentary cultures.
Alternatively, the scripts and literature were portrayed as borrowed or appropriated
from more advanced cultures in the neighbouring regions such as Bengal and the
Irrawaddy valley. These speculations emerged as justifications for the development
of orthographies with Roman characters for writing Meeteilon and other
languages of the North-East Frontier, and the development of a common system
of transliteration subsequently emerged as the main objective for many linguistic
projects. The colonial state and its officials saw the Roman alphabet as imbued with
the power to domesticate the savage languages of the frontier region. Moreover,
it was always associated with the colonial state and seen as a symbol of colonial
conquest, leading to its (failed) endorsement by many colonial administrators as
the master script for all languages in British territories in South Asia.78
Damant, like Gordon, was also perplexed by the difference between the language
used for writing literary texts and the spoken colloquial language he encountered
in the 1870s. He considered learning the literary language and script crucial for
accessing the court records including the royal chronicles. He considered the
colloquial language even more significant for the daily functioning of the Political
Agency since it was also spoken by other communities in the state. Hence, he
concluded that any grammar compiled for the language should be based on the
language spoken and written at the time, and not on the court manuscripts, which
his informants told him had a vastly different language and script and contained
many obsolete words and phrases which were no longer intelligible to ordinary
people.79 This dilemma was to resurface in later studies and was consistent with
the shifts in the world of colonial linguistics and philology in the later decades
of the nineteenth century when there was an increasing demand for the study of
vernacular and contemporary languages over Sanskrit and Persian.80
Damant also observed that the grammar of Meeteilon contained peculiarities that
were only found in the ‘rude’ languages spoken by the ‘savage’ tribes surrounding
the region such as the Kookies and other Naga tribes inhabiting Manipur and
Cachar.81 He also suspected that the languages of the Naga tribes and Lushais were
77
Ibid., p. 36.
78
Brandt, ‘From a Symbol of Colonial Conquest’; Chatterji, A Roman Alphabet for India; Kurzon,
‘Romanisation of Bengali’; Majeed, Colonialism and Knowledge, pp. 107–40.
79
Damant, ‘Notes on Manipuri Grammar’, p. 174.
80
Majeed, Colonialism and Knowledge, pp. 5–7.
81
Ibid., pp. 5–7.
488 / Deepak Naorem
derived from Meeteilon and speculated that they belonged to the same family of
languages. Similarities with languages and scripts of neighbouring Burma and
Bengal were also frequently discussed. Creating genealogies of languages and
scripts in the region was another recurring theme in nineteenth-century colonial
linguistic studies and they preceded the more systematic genealogies of languages
created by Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India. The scope of these genealogies
was however not confined to the languages and scripts, but also their speakers,
and their cultural and political history. This is similar to linguistic studies in other
parts of the British empire, which attempted to write histories of languages and
scripts to establish their origins and place them in the emerging linguistic families,
to investigate the links between different languages and Sanskrit as well as other
South and South-East Asian languages.82 The studies of languages of the North-East
Frontier by these officers can be located in the context of wider colonial projects
and discourses on languages. The grammars and dictionaries they compiled were
meant to be much more than aids for learning the languages. They were also used
to compare languages and to explore whether there were political and cultural
affinities between their speakers in the past or present.
Damant’s writings became a seminal work for later Political Agents and
ethnographers who were interested in the languages, scripts, and literature of the
region, and were extensively cited. Unfortunately, he did not live to complete some
of his literary projects including the preparation of the grammar for Meeteilon. He
was beheaded at Khonoma in the Naga Hills in 1879, and his head was recovered
by the next Political Agent, Captain James Johnstone.83 Damant’s successors in
the region picked up his incomplete linguistic and literary projects which included
compiling an appropriate grammar, a more comprehensive dictionary, and an
orthography with Roman characters, which he believed would help the Europeans
master the language for their literary and administrative works.
Primrose’s Grammar
The first comprehensive grammar of Meeteilon in English was compiled by

A. J. Primrose in 1887 and published in 1888 with the title A Manipuri Grammar,
Vocabulary, and Phrase Book.84 As the title suggests, it had three parts: grammar,
vocabulary and a phrasebook. Primrose used Mrs Cutler’s Assamese phrasebook
as a model for preparing his text.85 He was assisted by his Bengali head clerk of
the Agency in Imphal, Babu Russic Lal Condoo, and his Burmese interpreter
Purander Singh, who was most probably a Manipuri settled in the Burmese capital.86
82
Trautmann, Languages and Nations, pp. 1–41.
83
Dairy of Sir James Johnstone, R-1/S-C/265, MSA, p. 93.
84
Primrose, A Manipuri Grammar.
85
Cutler, Vocabulary and Phrases.
86
The literati class in the state, including the scribes continuously move between the royal courts in
the region in Ava, Cachar and Tripura since the seventeenth century. The Burmese court also employed
He served as the officiating Political Agent of Manipur state between 1887 and 1888.
He transliterated Meeteilon words and sentences written in the Assamese–Bengali
script into Roman characters, following the system of transliteration suggested
by Sir Charles Lyall.87 He acknowledged the influence of Damant’s writings and
observations on the language and grammar of the region on his grammar.88 The
only dispute he had with Damant’s observations on Meeteilon grammar was about
the conjugation of the verbs and of the exact meaning of many forms of verbs.
He rearranged the grammar in a different order from Damant’s to have a clearer
understanding of the language and its peculiar features, such as the use of a large
variety of tenses in the language. His grammar also contained a collection of
Manipuri phrases, proverbs, specimens of correspondence, letters and other forms
of writing which were helpful for learning to read and write the language.89
Primrose’s grammar was widely circulated among the Europeans as well as Bengali
clerks who were posted at the Manipur Political Agency, as well as in Calcutta and
London among the linguistic scholars and young officers expecting a position in the
region. However, unlike Damant he was unfamiliar with the Meetei script and did not
reveal whether he consulted the court scribes and records. His use of the Assamese–
Bengali and Roman scripts made it easier for his European and Bengali audiences to
learn the language. He pointed out that most people in Manipur did not know languages
other than their own. Hence, officers and servants of the Government—both civil and
military—travelling to or through the state to Burma experienced great difficulty in
getting the supplies which were necessary for their long journey. He also pointed out
that rarely did any Manipuri state officials know English or Hindustani, making it
these Manipuri scribes as interpreters and envoys to communicate with the other courts and British
government throughout the nineteenth century. Their ability to speak many languages and write in
several scripts made them useful in these courts. They are also recorded in colonial sources such as the
Administrative Reports and Tour Dairies of Political Agents. Hence Purander Singh was most probably a
Manipuri scribe in Burma. For existing studies on these multilingual and mobile literati class see Charney,
‘Literary Culture on Burma–Manipur Frontier’, pp. 159–81; Leider, ‘Specialists for Ritual, Magic, and
Devotion’, pp. 159–202; Carter, ‘Four Notables of Lower Chindwin’, pp. 336–42; Hlaing, ‘The Meitei
(Kathe) Crown Service’, pp. 65–86; Beemer, The Creole city in Mainland Southeast Asia, pp. 138–45.
87
Letter from John Shakespeare to George Grierson dated 21 December 1905 and Letter from
George Grierson to John Shakespeare dated 24 January 1906, S/1/4/11, IOR, BL, 1899–1927. It seems
that many European officials posted in the region including Political Agents and District Commissioners
designed their own system of transliterating the languages of the region into Roman alphabet, which led
to the emergence of conflicting transliteration styles in the region, creating issues for officers who were
transferred from one part of the North-East frontier to another. The transliteration system for languages
in the region was debated among several colonial linguistic scholars and officials. George Grierson was
of the opinion that the most critical thing was to have a uniform system of transliteration for all the
languages of Assam and the surrounding regions, and Charles Lyall’s system was hence devised and
adopted for Assam Government publications. On the other hand, John Shakespeare (Political Agent of
Manipur, 1905–14) pointed out that a uniform transliteration system for all the languages in the region
was extremely problematic and created confusion for the officers posted in the region.
88
Primrose, A Manipuri grammar, p. 1.
89
Ibid., pp. 34–117.
490 / Deepak Naorem
extremely difficult for the Europeans to communicate with them as the languages of
the region were extremely difficult and strange, almost gibberish to European ears.
He argued that the British Empire had grand plans for Manipur; an Assam regiment
was already stationed in the state and he had heard rumours within the inner circles
of the Bengal government of a plan to place a permanent and bigger military station
there.90 Hence he felt that there was an urgent necessity to compile knowledge about the
languages of the region to assist the ambitions of the British empire there. This shows
that Primrose’s motivation for compiling his grammar was not only linguistic interest
but also to serve the political ambitions of the colonial state.
Figure 2. Damant’s Transliteration of the Text Samsok Namba.
Source: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.91
90
Ibid. Preface.
91
JASB, Plate VIII, 1877, p. 495.
Primrose’s grammar was soon criticised by subsequent Political Agents,

missionaries and linguistic scholars. George Grierson pointed out that this grammar
was too short and inadequate for getting a clear idea of Meeteilon, and argued that
someone should prepare a more comprehensive history, grammar, and dictionary
of the language with the assistance of recent linguistic studies and a reliable local
scholar.92 In 1924, L. O. Clarke compiled a Manipuri to English dictionary, which
helped the Europeans and Bengali clerks and also enabled the educated locals to learn
English. The most successful grammar for Meeiteilon was however compiled by a
missionary of the American Baptist Mission, Reverend W. Pettigrew, in collaboration
with a local scholar Wahengbam Yumjao Singh.93 In 1894, he was permitted by the
Officiating Political Agent of Manipur, A. Porteous, to enter the state to open a school
in Imphal. While his primary motive was his missionary work, like other colonial
officers he also hoped that his grammar would eventually help the military as well
as civil officials of the state.94 Similarly, dictionaries, primers, and grammars of other
languages spoken in Manipur and the surrounding regions were also compiled.95
Many colonial officers and missionaries undertook linguistic studies on their
own without direct funding or direction from the colonial state. They were also
encouraged by a policy of the Government of Bengal, whose governor Sir Charles
Elliot in 1881 issued directives to compile grammars, vocabularies and phrasebooks
of all the leading tribes of Assam, and also to record their customs and institutions.96
Joy L. K. Pachuau has pointed out that the initial phase of encounters between
the British and the hill tribes in the North-East Frontier produced many proto-
ethnographic materials containing descriptions of their languages.97 Charles Lyall
summarised the Bengal government’s necessity for such linguistic endeavours:
Without an understanding of the language of a tribe, there can be no adequate

investigation of its institutions; the speech is the expression of the mind of the
people who speak it, the measure of their culture and outlook upon the world
92
Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. 3, Part 3, p. 24.
93
Papers of Rev. William Pettigrew, 5 Jan 1869–10 April 1943, GB 891 WP, Royal Asiatic Society
Archives (RASA), London, 1869–1943. The collaboration between Wahengbam Yumjao Singh and
Rev. William Pettigrew on several linguistic projects is documented in Pettigrew’s private papers.
94
Pettigrew, Manipuri Grammar, pp. 1–2. Pettigrew’s close connections with the Political Agents
of Manipur such as John Shakespeare and John Higgins was exposed by other Christian missions in
the region such as the North East India General Mission (NEIGM). The British Secretary of NEIGM,
John C. Williams wrote to the Secretary of State for India on 16 October 1925 that Rev Pettigrew of the
American Baptist Church was colluding with the British officials in the state to expel the missionaries of
NEIGM and local converts from the state. See, Manipur - Missionary Activities, Missionaries in Indian
States, Activities of Christian Missions in Eastern States Agencies, L/PS/13/1004, PD, IOR, BL, 1925–38.
95
A large number of similar grammars and dictionaries for languages in the region have been compiled
by several colonial officials. Bronson, Dictionary in Assamese; Clark, Myzyng Ashiba Kakyt, Ao Naga
Primer; Brown, ‘Specimens of Naga Language of Assam’; Witter, Outline grammar of the Lhota; McCabe,
Outline grammar of the Angami; Clark, Ao Naga grammar; Hutton, Rudimentary grammar of the Sema.
96
Hodson, The Meitheis, p. xviii.
97
Pachuau, Being Mizo, p. 94.
492 / Deepak Naorem
around them. It is moreover especially in Assam, with its vast diversity of ethnic
stocks, the only safe index of the affinities of a tribe with its neighbours, and
in the almost complete absence of a historic record of remembered tradition,
to the migrations which have brought the various tribes to their present sites.98
The colonial state and its functionaries saw the languages of various communities
of the region—especially those without a written tradition—as a reservoir of their
history, and a window to look into their world. Lyall further commented that the
literate tradition in Manipur represented ‘this singular oasis of comparative civilisation
and organised society, set in the midst of congeries of barbarous people, over whom
its rulers exercise an authority….’99 Colonial officers like Lyall and Hodson saw
literacy as one aspect that distinguished the Meeteis from the neighbouring hill-
tribes, calcifying differences and hierarchies in the region on linguistic lines. They
also wanted to study the language, script and literature of the Meeteis to unlock their
history, cultural evolution, and relationships with the surrounding tribes.
Translating the puyas

One of the many objectives of compiling grammars, primers and dictionaries for
Meeteilon was to gain access to the large corpus of court records and other texts
written with Meetei mayek. The translation of court records and the texts which
are now popularly called puyas was a logical extension of the colonial linguistic
projects. Moreover, these texts and their manuscripts were seen as authentic sources
for documenting as well as studying the language and the script. Europeans learnt
about these texts in the late eighteenth century and visited the capital of the kingdom
to collect their manuscripts. Colonial officials sought these records continuously
since the gathering of information became even more critical for the expansion of
the colonial state after the Treaty of Yandabo was signed in 1826 and the Political
Agency was established in Manipur in 1835. Christopher Bayly argued that the
early colonial state was ‘always ill-informed, beset by information panics and was
always obsessed with information gathering’. He further argued that access to the
local networks of information gathering was crucial for the survival of the empire
in India.100 This was particularly important in the North-East Frontier region due
to its inaccessible topography as well marginality in terms of languages, scripts
and literary practices compared to other regions in British India.
The Europeans had initially relied on informants from Bengal, but found their
service inadequate and unreliable. They subsequently preferred the writings of their
predecessors over the information provided by Bengali or Manipuri informants.101
They realised that the court records of Manipur would serve as a more authentic
98
Hodson, The Meitheis, p. xviii.
99
Ibid., p. xvii.
100
Bayly, Empire and Information, pp. 1–9.
101
Son-Doerschel, The making of the Zo; idem, ‘The Role of Informants’, pp. 3–4.
source of information, which resulted in their interest in collecting, cataloguing,

and translating them. This also led to the entry of the puyas into colonial archives
in several forms. Historians until recently were unaware of the translation projects
undertaken by the Political Agents and other Europeans in the region, or about
the existence of several colonial-era translations of texts from the region. 102
The translation project was a contested and complicated affair and entangled with
other colonial projects such as boundary-making. It was not uncommon for the
colonial officers to acquire court records during the nineteenth century, while at the
same time the Durbar and the court scribes made it an extremely difficult exercise.
Captain Gordon and Major McCulloch reported the existence of these local texts,
especially the court records, but did not attempt to collect and translate them. Captain
Robert Boileau Pemberton and Henry Burney were perhaps the first European officers
to access the court records of Manipur, and translated them while mediating relations
between the states of Manipur and Burma.103 It seems that they also compared the
court records of Ava and Manipur. For example, Pemberton reported:
The truth of this portion of their historical annals receives most unexpected
and satisfactory corroboration, from the records of Ava, in which all the
principal circumstances are narrated, nearly as we find them in the chronicles of
Muneepoor, with a trifling variation of three or four years in the dates assigned
to the different events, for the knowledge of which we are indebted to the
researches of Lieut-Colonel Burney, the Resident of Ava.104
He further wrote about their use of court texts and documents:
Kubo from Muneepoor, had been keenly disputed by the Burmahs and
Muneepoorees, and the documents adduced by either party had been examined with
the most laborious care by Major Burney, Captain Grant, and myself: the result of
our investigations were submitted to Government in a series of the most detailed
reports, and it was finally determined to allow the Burmahs to have it, as a measure
of political expediency, and as one likely to conciliate and gratify their king.105
102
Nithor Nath Banerjee papers, Mss EUR D 485, BL, 1904. The knowledge of the translation
project and the existence of the translated text was made known to the public for the first time when
a translated text was located in the British Library in the India Office Records by a local historian, L.
Joychandra Singh. Singh published a book based on this translated text titled, The Lost Kingdom. A
copy of the translation was donated to the India office library by T. C. Hodson on 28 October 1946.
This copy was presented by T. C. Hodson to Mr Randle (his position and relationship with Hodson is
not known to the author). Hodson must have collected this copy from Manipur during his stint as the
Assistant Political Agent of Manipur state since this text was circulated among the colonial officers
posted there. This copy came to the possession of the India Office in London on 30 October 1946.
103
See Pemberton, Report on the Eastern Frontier; Bayfield and Burney, Historical Review of the
Political; Burney, The Journal of Henry Burney.
104
Pemberton, Report on the Eastern Frontier, p. 37.
105
Ibid., p. 119.
494 / Deepak Naorem
Pemberton and Burney did not however explain how they were able to translate
the court records, or disclose whether they were assisted in the process by the court
scribes and their local informants. Colonial officers tended to erase and overlook the
contributions of their local informants and collaborators in their works. The court
records of Manipur and the scribes who maintained them however documented
their collaborations with the Europeans extensively. For example, they described
Dr Brown’s keen and persistent effort to gain access to the court records and to
translate them for his use in the Agency. In 1873, the court scribes noted in the
court record Cheitharon Kumpapa that Phirinki Tamson Sahep (Col. Mowbray
Thomson, Deputy Political Agent) asked for a detailed report on the court records
and enquired if they were written in the Devanagari script because Bara Sahep
(Dr Brown) wanted it to be translated into English.106 The use of the older Meeteilon
and Meetei mayek for writing these records prevented Dr Brown from making further
attempts to collect and translate them and he was only able to access the records through
the court scribes. He however admitted the use of the court records for his daily work.107
Captain Damant, with the assistance of the court scribes, was able to collect
manuscripts of texts such as Samsok Ngamba, Takhel Ngamba, Meiyang Ngamba,
Langlol, and Salkau.108 Court records also reveal that manuscripts of several texts
were made available to him and other European officers through the intervention
of Maharaja Chandrakirti.109 For example in the year 1875–1876, Firingki Sahep
Makilum (C. C. R. MacWilliams, Deputy Commissioner of Cachar) requested
Manipur Durbar for copies of certain court records. A royal order was given to
the court scribes to make two copies of the manuscript and were dispatched to
Cachar.110 Damant supervised the translation of the Samsok Ngamba (Conquest of
Samsok) into English. He admitted that it was a staggering task to transliterate and
translate Meeteilon texts, as many phrases in the text were obscure and doubtful,
and they were interpreted differently by various court scribes he consulted during
the process.111 He produced a page of his English translation of the text in one of
106
Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol. 3, p. 155. Similarly, the court scribes also recorded many
instances when Political Agents and other colonial officials consulted the court records for information,
or appealed to the scribes to record certain events. For example, in the Meetei year of Haoronpa Deba
(1872–73), Manipuri officials along with 4 Phiringi Saheps consulted the Cheitharon Kumpapa for some
information. The Saheps wanted to know the names of two Aawang (northern) tribal villages subdued
by Raja Gambhir Singh and of two villages which were subdued during the time of regent Nara Singh.
107
AARMA, R-3/S-3, MSA, 1874–75, pp. 5–7.
108
These texts include historical accounts of military expeditions of the rulers of Manipur, treatises
on morality, and animal husbandry. (Samsok Ngamba—Conquest of Samsok, Takhel Ngamba—Conquest
of Tripura, Meiyang Ngamba—Conquest of Cachar, Langlol—Treatise on morality and Salkau—Treatise
on animal husbandry)
109
110
Ibid., p. 175.
111
Damant, ‘Notes on the old Manipuri character’, p. 38.
his published notes in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.112 He was also
interested in collecting and translating the court record, Cheitharol Kumpapa. He
described the record as a ‘national chronicle’, but lamented that he was unsuccessful
in collecting their manuscripts.113 There was nevertheless discontentment and
reluctance among the court scribes against such colonial projects. The establishment
of colonial hegemony over languages and literature in the colonised societies was a
contested exercise which led to the development of a hostile relationship between
the court scribes and the Political Agents, who often described the former as being
belligerent and deceitful. James Johnstone described the court scribes as the ‘most
arrogant race’ he had encountered in the east and Captain Maxwell described them
as scheming ‘demon worshippers’.114
Figure 3. Front Page of A. J. Primrose’s Manipuri Grammar.
Source: Primrose115
112
For Damant’s transliteration see Plate VIII, JASB, 1877, p. 495; and for Damant’s English
translation of the text, p. 38 onwards.
113
Damant, ‘Notes on the old Manipuri character’, p. 37.
114
Dairy of Sir James Johnstone, R-1/S-C/265, MSA, pp. 191–4; Dairy of Major H. St. P. Maxwell,
Entry no. 5 11–17 October 1891, Lib/R007/S3/79, ASA, 1891. He argued that ‘the Maipas were demon-
worshippers and the priests of the sect, and Mr Quinton and his companion’s execution in front of the
dragons leads to the supposition that the Maipas voted in favour of the murder and took part in it by
smearing the blood of the executed Europeans on the huge statues of the dragons’.
115
Primrose, A Manipuri Grammar.
496 / Deepak Naorem
Major translations of court records and texts were only possible after 1891
when the administration of Manipur was partially taken over by the British and
the state was occupied by an invading colonial army commanded by Sir Henry
Collet.116 Maxwell, who became the first post-1891 Political Agent and the first
superintendent of Manipur state, confiscated the court records from the palace in
Kangla (a fortified citadel in Imphal) and supervised some of the major translations
of the court records. The court scribes also recorded these translation projects
commissioned by Maxwell.117 He transferred the court records which were kept in
sealed royal boxes in the Maipa Loishang (Institute of court scholars and scribes)
to his residence in Kangla. Due to his distrust of the court scribes, he relied on
Bengali clerks such as Babu Rasik Lal Kundu, Babu Umesh Chandra Ghosh, and
Babu Bama Charan Mukherjee to handle the court records. He commissioned the
translation of the Cheitharon Kumpapa. The seals on the royal boxes were broken,
and manuscripts of the record were handed over to Maxwell, who kept them in the
state office where the Bengali clerk Bama Charan, with the help of twelve court
scribes, undertook the translation and transcription project. Maxwell’s persecution
of the court scribes and the looming threat of their displacement perhaps forced
many of them to collaborate with the colonial administration. Maxwell imprisoned
the chief court scribes after 1891 but later discharged them after failing to implicate
them in the murder of European officers.118
The translated text was finally typewritten at the State Office in 1904 by another
Bengali clerk, Nithor Nath Banerjee, and printed and circulated with the title State
Dairy of Manipur. The entire translation project was a lengthy process, which began
with the acquisition of the manuscripts, which were then transliterated from old
Meeteilon in the Meetei mayek to colloquial Meeteilon in the Assamese–Bengali
script, then translated into English by Bengali clerks, and finally typewritten in
the State Office before being sent to press. It took more than a decade for the
final translated text to be printed and published. There were a large number of
similar translations produced after 1891.119 Manuscripts of other court records
116
For more information on the Manipur Expedition of 1891, and the subsequent occupation of the state by
a British army see Operations in Manipur, 1891, Medals and Clasp and Honours and Rewards, L/MIL/7/151-
07, IOR, BL, 1891–1892; Empress Vrs Tikendrajit Singh, Proceedings of the Manipur Commission for the
trial of members of Ruling family, Mss EUR E 325/11, BL, 1891; Parratt, Queen Empress Vs Tikendrajit.
117
Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol. 3, p. 275.
118
Dairy of Major H. St. P. Maxwell, Political Agent, Entry No. 5, 11–17 October 1891, Lib/R007/
S3/79, ASA, 1891.
119
A large number of stone and copper inscriptions were also translated after 1891, under the
supervision of the colonial officials, and these translations were used in their administrative works
such as fixing the borders of the state. For example, a stone inscription from the year 1871–72 at Chivu
near the border with the Chin Hills which was under British Administration in the 1890s was translated
into English during the Manipur Boundary commission of 1894 to aid the process of boundary-making
between Manipur state and the Chin Hills. The translation of the inscription was reproduced in the reports
of the boundary commission as well as in the tour dairies of various colonial officials associated with
such as the genealogies of the ruling family were also confiscated by Maxwell for
translation and in the following years Bama Charan was given the task of collecting
manuscripts of various Meetei lairiks (texts) from the local pundits.120 It also appears
that it became much easier for other colonial officials, their wives, and visiting
anthropologists to access and collect these manuscripts after 1891. They started
discussing, citing, and reproducing facsimiles of manuscripts of these texts in their
private correspondences and published works.121
Figure 4. Cover Page of the Translated Text, State Dairy of Manipur.
Reproduced from my Notes Taken from the Manuscript in
the British Library.
Source: Nithor Nath Banerjee papers.122
the commission. See Dairy and Report of the Manipur Boundary Commission 1894 by Lieutenant W. H.
Dent, Lib/R007/S3/81, ASA, 1894; Entry No. 2 of 1894, Dairy of A. Porteous, Esq., I.C.S., Offg. Political
Agent in Manipur and Superintendent of the State, for February 1894, Lib/R007/S3/79, ASA, 1894.
120
121
Sir Henry Cole’s private paper collection, Accession number: 1978.5. (.1–69), 5.71–75, Pitt Rivers
Museum Manuscript Collection (PRMMC), Oxford, 1978; Hodson, The Meitheis, p. 128. Also see the
correspondences between Hodson, Grierson, W. Yumjao Singh and Rev. Pettigrew for the Linguistic
Survey of India. They constantly discussed the texts and their manuscripts in their correspondences.
Letter from G. A. Grierson to W. Yumjao Singh Dated 6 July 1926; Letter from W. Yumjao Singh to
G. A. Grierson Dated 28 September 1926, No. 13, S/1/4/11, IOR, BL, 1899–1927.
122
Nithor Nath Banerjee papers, Mss EUR D 485, IOR, BL, 1904.
498 / Deepak Naorem
As pointed out above, the translation projects were not merely literary exercises
and were meant to aid the colonial officials in their daily administrative works in the
region. After the incumbent ruler Maharaja Kulachandra was exiled to the Andamans
with his followers for his role in the uprising against the British intervention in
succession in 1891, Maxwell started looking for a successor to the gaddi (throne) of
Manipur. He started enquiring about the genealogy of the kings of Manipur to find the
appropriate heir.123 Court scribes Sarang Panji and Taoriya Hidang were summoned
and were asked to put in writing the entire genealogy of the kings of Manipur,
beginning with the descendants and family of the former ruler Meetingu Pamheiba
(1690–1751), within five days.124 Maxwell also instructed the other court scribes
to compile a list of names of all the princes of the land of the Meeteis according to
the right genealogy and in the correct order. The scribes replied that they could not
do so without consulting the court records of genealogies of all the families in the
land, which were kept in sealed royal boxes and could not be opened without royal
permission.125 The royal seals were broken in the presence of Maxwell and the scribes
compiled an extensive list of genealogies of all the princes descended from Meetingu
Pamheiba. The genealogical list was then translated into English by Bama Charan
with the help of the court scribes and was presented to Maxwell.126 After consulting
the translated genealogical records, Maxwell concluded that the descendants of former
Raja Gambhir Singh (1825–1834) betrayed the British Empire and hence the gaddi
should be passed on to the line of Nara Singh (1844–1850) who was considered more
pliant by the colonial administration. After consulting the translated genealogical
text, he tracked down a descendant of Nara Singh’s eldest son Bhuban Singh, a
seven-year-old prince Churachand Singh. The young boy was crowned by Maxwell
as the next Maharaja of Manipur at the young age of eight after getting approval and
a sanad (deed) from the British government.127
The practice of relying extensively on court records was a continuation of the
older practice of consulting local texts and court records by the Political Agents
for their administrative works.128 However, unlike the previous practices, Maxwell
123
124
Ibid., p. 278.
125
They were referring to the court record Meehouparon Yumchangpa. After Cheitharon Kumpapa,
this court record was the most cited and referenced record in other sources from the eighteenth and
nineteenth century. Manuscripts of this genealogical record are available in the Manipur State Archives
in Imphal and Manipur State Kala Academy in Imphal.
126
Translations of genealogies of kings of Manipur started appearing in many forms. See Chief
and Leading Officials and Personages in Manipur, Lib/P007/S4/25, ASA, 1914; Sir Henry Cole’s
private papers, Accession number: 1978.5. (.1–69), PRMMC, 1978. Cole’s papers contain handwritten
genealogies of the kings of Manipur in Meeteilon in the Meetei script along with English translations.
127
Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol. 3, p. 278; Dairy of Major H. St. P. Maxwell, Entry No. 1. 13–19
September, 1891, Lib/R007/S3/79, ASA, 1891. The proclamation dated 21 August 1891, issued by the
order of the Governor-General in Council selecting the minor prince as the Raja is reproduced in his dairy.
128
There are several examples of use of these court texts by colonial officers in their administrative
work; see Parratt, The Court Chronicle, Vol. 3, pp. 116, 152–3.
and his successors were able to gain direct physical access to the court records and
translate them into English for their administrative use with the assistance of Bengali
clerks and pliant court scribes. Colonial officers and clerks could then study these
records without the continuous mediation of the court scribes. The participation
and collaboration of the court scribes remained crucial in the translation process
due to their knowledge of the language and script. The colonial administration
exerted authority over a group of court scribes after 1891. Their participation in
the translation of court records and other texts is clear evidence of it. In the Meetei
month of Lamta (February–March) 1892, people of the Aangom clan approached
Maxwell asking if they could settle in the marshy area of Porompat and extend wet
rice cultivation in the region. Maxwell was already looking for opportunities to
assess and raise the revenue of the state. He summoned the court scribes to consult
the records regarding the nature and ownership of the land in question. The court
scribes wrote a note for the Political Agent stating that the land did not belong to a
lai (deity) or a religious shrine and hence could be cultivated and settled. The note
was translated into English by the clerk Bama Charan and presented to Maxwell,
and the Aangom clan was allowed to settle and cultivate rice on the land.129 This
subsequently resulted in the commissioning of an ambitious report on land revenue
and land ownership in the state.130
The translations of the various court records and texts were increasingly seen
by the colonial administration as reliable and authentic records of recent events
and the history of the region. For example, during the trial of the crown prince
of Manipur Tikendrajit Singh alias Koireng for waging war against the Empress
of India in 1891, the commission set up for the trial requested the translation of
a section of the palace manuscript of Cheitharon Kumpapa, to look into how the
‘Manipur Trouble’ of 1891 was recorded by the court scribes.131 Maxwell was able to
compile a report on the events leading to and during the Anglo-Manipuri war of 1891
based on the court records with the help of the court scribes and his Bengali clerks.
A copy of this report was made available to the commission and perhaps found
its way to the India Office in London.132 The report was consulted by the colonial
administration and the commission and was orally corroborated by prosecution
witnesses during the trial which included Bengali clerks Bama Charan Mukherjee
and Rasik Lal Kundu among others. The trial resulted in the conviction, exile, and
execution of members of the royal family who were considered treacherous to the
129
Ibid., p. 284.
130
Ibid., pp. 280–1. With the help of the court scribe, Bama Charan made a list of all the owners of
paddy fields in the state, translated the report into English, and submitted it to Maxwell. This report was
perhaps the first extensive land revenue assessment of the state, which was used during the subsequent
land revenue reforms under the colonial administration.
131
Empress vs Tikendrajt Singh (alias Koireng, Ex-Jubraj of Manipur), Proceedings of the Manipur
Commission for the trial of members of Ruling family,’ Mss EUR E 325/11, BL, 1891.
132
‘Report: The Manipur trouble of 1891 as written in the Chethrol Kumbaba’, Mss Eur E325/8,
London, 1891.
500 / Deepak Naorem
British Empire.133 A complete annexation of the state was overruled after continuous
debates in the British Parliament; however, the colonial administration was able to
enthrone a figurehead raja of their choice.
The use of court records and sections of the chronicle by the commission during the
trial also reveals the attitude of the colonial state and its officials towards written texts
which they considered to be more reliable sources of information about the region and
its people in comparison to the hearsay, rumours, and gossip of the local interpreters
and informants. After 1891 several court records and texts were translated and used in
different colonial administrative projects. Acquiring and translating these texts emerged
as one of the most significant aspects of colonial information-gathering and knowledge-
production in the North-East Frontier region, especially in Manipur throughout the
nineteenth century. None of these translations would have been possible without the
participation of the court scribes and most importantly some knowledge of Meeteilon
and the Meetei mayek among the Bengali clerks and European officers.
Despite these translations and the collaboration of the court scribes, it is important
to ask questions about the process of translations and the translated texts. The
translation of the court chronicle Cheitharon Kumpapa is an example. Its recent
translator Saroj N. A. Parratt writes,
Mukherjee had no knowledge of the Meetei Mayek script and was not a scholar,
though he understood colloquial Manipuri; moreover, the Meetei pundits did
not have any knowledge of the English language. The rendering was hence
inaccurate in many places and of very limited historical value.134
She cast doubts over the translated version as ‘it has some curious additions
which were probably meant to please the British’.135 A copy of the translated text
is preserved in the India Office Records in the British Library, donated by T. C.
Hodson on 28 October 1946. Upon comparing the translated text with the existing
manuscripts and other available translations of the text by Parratt and Khelchandra-
Ibungohal, it is clear that the translation was incongruous with the court chronicle.
It could simply be a result of terrible translation work by the Bengali clerks, but it
is also possible that the translation was of another well-known text, Ningthourol
Lampupa which is a list of the kings of Manipur and their recorded activities.
Hodson wrote that the Manipuri title of the translated text is Meithei Ningthourol.136
The content and the structure of the translated text are also different from Cheitharon
Kumpapa. The translated text begins with the line ‘I bow down the gods and begin
to write the origin of the Manipur Royal family’. The court chronicle is however
neither a genealogical text nor a list of the kings of Manipur. It is possible that the
court scribes misled and sabotaged Maxwell’s grand translation projects.
133
Ghose, Manipur, provides information on the legal aspects of the trial.
134
135
Ibid., p. 10.
136
Letters from T. C. Hodson to Randle dated 28 October 1946, Mss EUR D 485, IOR, BL, 1904.
Conclusion
The colonial conquest of the North-East Frontier region was also a linguistic conquest,
which began by taming the ‘rude’ and ‘barbarous’ languages of the region through the
compilation of grammar, vocabulary books, primers, and dictionaries. The conquest
was secured by collecting and translating the literary texts and court records of the
region into English, making them available to colonial officers for their administrative
work. Officers posted in the region played a significant role in these linguistic studies
throughout the nineteenth century, apart from their usual administrative, military,
and diplomatic responsibilities. Their linguistic and literary projects constantly aided
the expansion and functioning of the colonial administration in the region. Their
works became indispensable in the process of information-gathering by assisting the
European officials and Bengali clerks in accessing the local languages and literary
texts, especially the court records. They also created rudimentary philological
knowledge and data about languages in the region by compiling their genealogies
and histories, and placing them within the emerging linguistic families and groups.
These studies also promoted old Meeteilon as a key to studying the Tibeto-Burman
languages and their manuscripts as material repositories of the linguistic family.137
Grierson pointed out that as far as he was aware, Meeteilon was the oldest record of
a medieval Tibeto-Burman language that existed in the region. He argued that it was
important to prepare the grammar and vocabulary of the old language, to compare
it with its vernacular form and other neighbouring languages.138 He promoted this
hypothesis about the language to many scholars, including L. F. Taylor, who was in
charge of the Linguistic Survey of Burma.139 Grierson also pressed Professor Surya
Kumar Bhuyan and the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies of Assam to
take up studies of old Meeteilon.140 Grierson’s hypothesis was subsequently supported
by many linguistic scholars such as T. C. Hodson.141 Hodson reiterated the necessity
to collect and translate or transliterate old Meeteilon texts into modern Meeteilon
137
See the correspondence between G. A. Grierson, T. C. Hodson and W. Yumjao Singh regarding
the languages and manuscripts of the texts. No. 13, S/1/4/11, IOR, BL, 1899–1927.
138
Letter from G. A. Grierson to Prof. S. K. Bhuyan dated 5 April 1932, Correspondence with Assam
Government regarding gramophone records, Mss EUR E 223/274, LSI, BL, 1916–32.
139
Correspondences with Government of Burma, form 10 November 1899 to 10 January 1921, LSI,
Collection XIII, No. 2, S/1/13/2, IOR, BL, 1903–1921.
140
Letter from G. A. Grierson to Prof. S. K. Bhuyan dated 5 April 1932, Mss EUR E 223/274, LSI,
BL, 1916–32. After the intervention of G. A. Grierson and J. C. Higgins, the Political Agent of Manipur,
the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies of the Government of Assam decided to take up
translations of Meetei puyas in 1934. See Bulletin No. 2 of the Department of Historical and Antiquarian
Studies, 1934, p. 43. File no 5-89/50-A2, Ministry of Education, NAI, 1950.
141
Letter from T. C. Hodson to G. A. Grierson dated 18 October 1899, No 13 S/1/4/11, IOR, BL,
1899–1927. Hodson later became the first William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the
University of Cambridge and an important figure in Sociolinguistics.
502 / Deepak Naorem
and English for a comparative study of the languages in order to reveal their true
characteristics and origin.142
The nineteenth-century colonial officers were also aware of the limitations
of their linguistic projects and implored their successors in the region to revise
their works with more detailed studies, better access to local scholars, and more
manuscripts of local texts. The manuscripts were gradually considered the most
authentic material repositories of linguistic knowledge. This sentiment was
reiterated by Grierson, Hodson, Rev Pettigrew and Shakespeare, who continued
the legacy of the early linguistic studies in the early twentieth century. This
article also reveals the highly hostile, contentious, and complicated nature of
colonial linguistic and literary projects in Manipur and the surrounding regions.
The Durbar and the court scribes continued to challenge and negotiate with the
authority of the Political Agents and their linguistic projects, even leading to
their expulsion from the state.143 It shows that colonial officers in the region did
not always exercise unconstrained authority, and they continuously solicited
collaboration from the local political and literary elites. Finally, it also argues
that colonial knowledge (especially linguistic) was also mediated by the local
literati class and texts like the puyas.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: The authors acknowledged the financial support of Charles
Wallace India Trust.
References
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Lib/R007/S3/79, Dispur, 1891.
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Lib/R007/S3/81, Rangoon, 1894.
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142
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BL, 1899–1927.
143
For the expulsion of Dr R. Brown from the state see File no 152–239, Foreign Political
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Taming the ‘rude’ and ‘barbarous’ tongues

of the frontier: Bor Saheps, Sutu Saheps

The concept of the North-East Frontier region emerged as a consequence of

Residents, Political Agents, and ‘Indirect Rule’ in the British Empire

A large area outside British India—often subsumed as Princely India—consisted of

The Political Agency in Manipur State

the Company territories in Cachar.27 On 7 February 1835, Lord Bentinck stated

Colonel McCulloch—now promoted—was reappointed as the Political Agent of

Taming the Languages: Compiling Dictionaries,

The Political Agents played a significant role in collecting information, documenting,

region. He published a report called A Comparative Vocabulary of the Languages

Compiling the First Meeteilon Grammar

The first comprehensive grammar of Meeteilon in English was compiled by

Figure 2. Damant’s Transliteration of the Text Samsok Namba.

Source: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.91

Primrose’s grammar was soon criticised by subsequent Political Agents,

Without an understanding of the language of a tribe, there can be no adequate

Translating the puyas

source of information, which resulted in their interest in collecting, cataloguing,

He further wrote about their use of court texts and documents:

Figure 3. Front Page of A. J. Primrose’s Manipuri Grammar.

Source: Nithor Nath Banerjee papers.122

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