[1] According to Father Braun this custom cannot be traced earlier than the 9th century. It forms no essential part of the ordination ceremony (Liturg. Gewandung, p. 548).
[2] For the evolution of these rules see Braun, op. cit. pp. 546 seq.
MANIPUR, a native state on the north-east frontier of India, in political subordination to the lieutenant-governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Area, 8456 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 284,465. It is bounded on the N. by the Naga country and the hills overlooking the Assam valley, on the W. by Cachar district, on the E. by Upper Burma, and on the S. by the Lushai hills. The state consists of a wide valley, estimated at about 650 sq. m., and a large surrounding tract of mountainous country. The hill ranges generally run north and south, with occasional connecting spurs and ridges of lower elevation between. Their greatest altitude is in the north, where they reach to upwards of 8000 ft. above sea-level. The principal geographical feature in the valley is the Logtak lake, an irregular sheet of water of considerable size, but said to be yearly growing smaller. The valley is watered by numerous rivers, the Barak being the most important. The hills are densely clothed with tree jungle and large forest timber. Some silk is produced and there are a few primitive manufacturing industries, e.g. of pottery. Rice and forest produce, however, are the principal exports. The road from Manipur to the Assam-Bengal railway at Dimapur is the principal trade route.
The kingdom of Manipur, or, as the Burmans call it, Kasse or Kathe, first emerges from obscurity as a neighbour and ally of the Shan kingdom of Pong, which had its capital at Mogaung. The valley appears to have been originally occupied by several tribes which came from different directions. Although their general facial characteristics are Mongolian, there is a great diversity of feature among the Manipuris, some of them showing a regularity approaching the Aryan type. In the valley the people are chiefly Hindus, that religion being of recent introduction. Their own name for themselves is Meithei, and their language is a branch of the Kuki-Chin family, spoken by 273,000 persons in all India in 1901. One of their peculiarities is the high position enjoyed by women, who conduct most of the trade of the valley. They have a caste system of their own, different from that of India, and chiefly founded on the system of lallup, or forced labour, which has been abolished by the British. Every male between the ages of seventeen and sixty was formerly obliged to place his services at the disposal of the state for a certain number of days each year, and to different classes of the people different employments were assigned. About four hundred Mahommedan families, descendants of settlers from Bengal, reside to the east of the capital. The aboriginal hill-men belong to one of the two great divisions of Nagas and Kukis, and are subdivided into innumerable clans and sections with slight differences in language, customs or dress. The state is noted for the excellence of its breed of ponies. The English game of polo was introduced from Manipur, where it forms a great national pastime.
The first relations of the British with Manipur date from 1762, when the raja solicited British aid to repel a Burmese invasion, and a treaty was entered into. The force was recalled, and little communication between the two countries took place until 1824, on the outbreak of the first Burmese War. British assistance was again invoked by the raja, and the Burmese were finally expelled from both the Assam and the Manipur valleys. Disputed successions have always been a cause of trouble. The raja, Chandra Kirtti Singh, died in 1886, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Sur Chandra Singh, who appointed his next brother, Kula Chandra Dhuya Singh, jubraj, or heir-apparent. In 1890 another brother, the senapati, or commander-in-chief, Tikendrajit Singh, dethroned the raja, and installed the jubraj as regent, the ex-raja retiring to Calcutta. In March 1891 the chief commissioner of Assam (Quinton) marched to Manipur with 400 Gurkhas, in order to settle the question of succession. His purpose was to recognize the new ruler, but to remove the senapati. After some futile negotiations, Quinton sent an ultimatum, requiring the surrender of the senapati, by the hands of the political resident, F. Grimwood, but no result followed. An attempt was then made to arrest the senapati, but after some sharp fighting, in which Lieut. Brackenbury was killed, he escaped; and the Manipuris then attacked the British residency with an overwhelming force. Quinton was compelled to ask for a parley, and he, Colonel Skene, Grimwood, Cossins and Lieut. Simpson, unarmed, went to the fort to negotiate. They were all there treacherously murdered, and when the news arrived the Gurkhas retreated to Cachar, Mrs Grimwood and the wounded being with them. This led to a military expedition, which did not encounter much resistance. The various columns, converging on Manipur, found it deserted; and the regent, senapati, and others were captured during May. After a formal trial the senapati and one of the generals of the rebellion were hanged and the regent was transported to the Andaman Islands. But it was decided to preserve the existence of the state, and a child of the ruling family, named Chura Chand, of the age of five, was nominated raja. He was sent to be educated in the Mayo College at Ajmere, and he afterwards served for two years in the imperial cadet corps. Meanwhile the administration was conducted under British supervision. The opportunity was seized for abolishing slavery and unpaid forced labour, a land revenue of Rs. 2 per acre being substituted in the valley and a house-tax in the hills. The boundaries of the state were demarcated, disarmament was carried out, and the construction of roads was pushed forward. In 1901 Manipur was visited by Lord Curzon, on his way from Cachar to Burma. In May 1907 the government of the state was handed over to Chura Chand, who was to be assisted by a council of six Manipuris, with a member of the Indian civil service as vice-president. At the same time it was announced that the government of India would support the raja with all its powers and suppress summarily all attempts to displace him. The revenue is £26,000. The capital is Imphal, which is really an overgrown village; pop. (1901), 67,093.
See Mrs Ethel St Clair Grimwood, My Three Years in Manipur (1891); Manipur State Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1905); T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis (1908).
MANISA (anc. Magnesia ad Sipylum), the chief town of the Saru-khan sanjak of the Aidin (Smyrna) vilayet of Asia Minor, situated in the valley of the Gediz Chai (Hermus), at the foot of Mt Sipylus, and connected by railway with Smyrna and Afium Kara-Hissar. Pop. about 35,000, half being Mussulman. Manisa is an important commercial centre, and contains interesting buildings dating from the times of the Seljuk and early Osmanli sultans, including mosques built by Murad II. and III. and a Mevlevi Tekke second only to that at Konia. It is the seat of a flourishing American mission. In 1204 Manisa was occupied by John Ducas, who when he became emperor made it the Byzantine seat of government. In 1305, after the inhabitants had massacred the Catalan garrison, Roger de Flor besieged it unsuccessfully. In 1313 the town was taken by Saru Khan and became the capital of the Turcoman emirate of that name. In 1398 it submitted to the Osmanli sultan Bayezid I., and in 1402 was made a treasure city by Timur. In 1419 it was the scene of the insurrection of the liberal reformer, Bedr ed-Din, which was crushed by Prince Murad, whose residence in the town as Murad II., after twice abdicating the throne, is one of the most romantic stories in Turkish history. In the 17th century Manisa became the residence of the greatest of the Dere Bey families, Kara Osman Oglu, Turcoman by origin, and possibly connected with the former emirs of Sarukhan, which seems to have risen to power by farming the taxes of a province which princes of the house of Othman had often governed and regarded with especial affection. The liva of Sarukhan was one of the twenty-two in the Ottoman Empire leased on a life tenure up to the time of Mahmud II. In the 18th century the family of Kara Osman Oglu (or Karasman) ruled de facto all west central Anatolia, one member being lord of Bergama and another of Aidin, while the head of the house held Manisa with all the Hermus valley and had greater power in Smyrna than the representative of the capitan pasha in whose province that city nominally lay. Outside their own fiefs the family had so much property that it was commonly said they could sleep in a house of their own at any stage from Smyrna to Baghdad. The last of its great beys was Haji Hussein Zadē, who was frequently called in to Smyrna on the petition of his friends, the European merchants, to assure tranquillity in the troublous times consequent on Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, and the British and Russian attacks on the Porte early in the 19th century. He always acquitted himself well, but having refused to bring his contingent to the grand vizier when on the march to Egypt in 1798, and awakened the jealousy of the capitan pasha, he was in continual danger. Exiled in 1812, he was subsequently restored to Manisa, and died there in 1821. His son succeeded after sanguinary tumults; but Mahmud II., who had long marked the family for destruction, was so hostile towards it, after he had got rid of the janissaries, that it had lost all but the shadow of power by 1830. Descendants survived in Manisa who retained a special right of granting title-deeds within the district, independent of the local administration.