Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/198

176 the Manipuris before their conversion to Hinduism. The only other MSS. of which I have been able to obtain information, are the "Meiyāng-gnamba," an account of the wars between Manipur and Kachār, and the “Salkau”, a treatise on cattle and the respect to be shown to them. The above seem to comprise the whole literature of Manipur; but it is just possible that further search may reveal one or two other works. The MSS. are all written on a coarse, but very durable, kind of paper, with pens made of bamboo; paper blackened with charcoal on which they write with a soapstone pencil is also used. The character has now been almost entirely superseded by Bengali, and indeed but few of the Manipuris can read it. A national chronicle is, however, still kept up by the guild of priests, "maibees" as they are called, in which every event of importance occurring in the country is regularly recorded."

Mr. Damant is of opinion that the old Manipuri alphabet was introduced from Bengal in the time of Charairongba, who flourished about 1700 A local tradition which I collected declares that the art of writing was acquired from the Chinese who came to Manipur about 1540. There can be no doubt that the local character belongs to the Devanagari group, and is therefore of Indian origin. The word to write (ī—ba) is derived from the root likh, of which the provenance is not in dispute. That root likh survives in the word lairik, a document, and the prefix lai, unless I am much mistaken, means divine, because mysterious or potent. "Taught as we are," says Tylor, "to read and write in early childhood, we hardly realise the place this wondrous double art fills in civilised life till we see how it strikes the barbarian who has not even a notion that such a thing can be." It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Damant's collection of Meithei literature was lost after his