Chapter MUNJEET to MUNTREE of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MUNJEET to MUNTREE

MUNJEET, s. Hind. majith, Skt. manjishtha; a dye-plant (Rubia cordifolia, L., N.O. Cinchonaceae); ‘Bengal Madder.’

MUNNEEPORE, n.p. Properly Manipur ; a quasi-inde pendent S ta te lyi ng be twee n the British district of Cachar on the extreme east of Bengal, and the upp er part of th e late kingdom of Burma, and in fact including a part of the watershed between the trib utaries of the Brahmaputra and those of the Irawadi. The people are of genuinely Indo-Chinese and Mongoloid aspect, and the State, small and secluded as it is, has had its turn in temporary conquest and domination, like almost all the States of Indo-China from the borders of Assam to the mouth of the Mekong. Like the other Indo-Chinese States, too, Manipur has its royal chronicle, but little seems to have been gathered from it. The Rajas and people have, for a period which seems uncertain, professed Hindu religion. A disastrous invasion of Manipur by Alompra, founder of the present Burmese dynasty, in 1755, led a few years afterwards to negotiations with the Bengal Government, and the conclusion of a treaty, in consequence of which a body of British sepoys was actually despatched in 1763, but eventually returned without reaching Manipur. After this, intercourse practically ceased till the period of our first Burmese War (1824-25), when the country was overrun by the Burmese, who also entered Cachar ; and British troops, joined with a Manipuri force, expelled them. Since then a British officer has always been resident at Manipur, and at one time (c. 1838–41) a great deal of labour was expended on opening a road between Cachar and Manipur. [The murder of Mr. Quinton, Chief-Commissioner of Assam, and other British officers at Manipur, in the close of 1890, led to the infliction of severe punishment on the leaders of the outbreak. The Maharaja, whose abdication led to this tragedy, died in Calcutta in the following year, and the State is now under British management during the minority of his successor.]

This State has been called by a variety of names. Thus, in Rennell’s Memoir and maps of India it bears the name of Meckley. In Symes’s Narrative, and in maps of that period, it is Cassay ; names, both of which have long disappeared from modern maps. Meckley represents the name (Makli ?) by which the country was known in Assam ; Mogli (apparently a form of the same) was the name in Cachar ; Ka-sé or Ka-thé (according to the Ava pronunciation) is the name by which it is known to the Shans or Burmese.

1755.—“I have carried my Arms to the confines of CHINA…on the other quarter I have reduced to my subjection the major part of the Kingdom of Cassay ; whose Heir I have taken captive, see there he sits behind you.…”—Speech of Alompra to Capt. Baker at Momchabue. Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 152.

1759.—“Cassay, which…lies to the N. Westward of AVA, is a Country, so far as I can learn, hitherto unheard of in Europe.…”—Letter, dd. 22 June 1759, in ibid. 116.

[1762.—“…the President sent the Board a letter which he had received from Mr. Verelst at Chittagong, containing an invitation which had been made to him and his Council by the Rajah of Meckley to assist him in obtaining redress…from the Burmas.…”—Letter, in Wheeler, Early Records, 291.]

1763.—“Meckley is a Hilly Country, and is bounded on the North, South, and West by large tracts of Cookie Mountains, which prevent any intercourse with the countries beyond them ; and on the East¹ by the Burampoota (see BURRAMPOOTER) ; beyond the Hills, to the North by Asam and Poong ; to the West Cashar ; to the South and East the BURMAH Country, which lies between Meckley and China.…The Burampoota is said to divide, somewhere to the north of Poong, into two large branches, one of which passes through ASAM, and down by the way of Dacca, the other through POONG into the Burma Country.”—Acct. of Meckley, by Nerher Doss Gosseen, in Dalrymple’s Or. Rep., ii. 477–478.

„ “…there is about seven days plain country between Moneypoor and Burampoota, after crossing which, about seven days, Jungle and Hills, to the inhabited border of the Burmah country.”—Ibid. 481.

1793.—“…The first ridge of mountains towards Thibet and Bootan, forms the limit of the survey to the north ; to which I may now add, that the surveys extend no farther eastward, than the frontiers of Assam and Meckley.…The space between Bengal and China, is occupied by the province of Meckley and other districts, subject to the King of Burmah, or Ava.…”—Rennell’s Memoir, 295.

1799.—(Referring to 1757). “Elated with success Alompra returned to Monchaboo, now the seat of imperial government. After some months…he took up arms against the Cassayers.…Having landed his troops, he was preparing to advance to Munnepoora, the capital of Cassay, when information arrived that the Peguers had revolted.…”—Symes, Narrative, 41–42.

„ “All the troopers in the King’s service are natives of Cassay, who are much better horsemen than the Birmans.”—Ibid. 318.

1819.—“Beyond the point of Negraglia (see NEGRAIS), as far as Azen (see ASSAM), and even further, there is a small chain of mountains that