Meitei Culture/Agriculture

Meitei agriculture has a strong relationship with the geography of the Meitei realms. According to ancient sources as well as modern day geological studies, the land of Kangleipak (present day Manipur) was a hilly and mountainous place, once having an oval shaped huge lake (which will later become the present day oval shaped lacustrine valley). During those times, different groups of the Meitei people and other ethnic groups used to live in different parts of the hills and mountains of Kangleipak. In those time, they practised shifting cultivation as their mode of agriculture.

However, in due course of time, the water level of the very lake decreased. Due to the formation of passage ways (possibly because of tectonic activities, soil erosion and massive land slides) in some parts of the hills of Kangleipak, the waters of the central lake flowed towards the plains of Myanmar (Burma), passing through the hills and mountains of Kangleipak. This eventually lowered the water level of the lake, thereby forming a lacustrine valley in its former position, though numerous smaller lakes were still present there.

This led to the migration of the Meiteis and other ethnic groups (which will all get Meiteised in later centuries) from the highlands to the newly formed lowlands of Kangleipak. Thus, their mode of agriculture got transformed into arable farming from that of shifting cultivation.

The fertile Imphal valley (also known as Manipur valley) is drained by the Imphal River and her tributaries (the Iril R., the Kongba R., the Nambul R., etc.) which will eventually become the Manipur R. to unite with the Chindwin Irrawaddy River System of Myanmar (Burma) to drain ultimately into the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean.

With the flourishing of agriculture in the fertile river banks of the Imphal R. and her tributaries, the civilization of the Meiteis developed.