Thang-Ta (Huyen Langlon)
Martial art of the Meitei of Manipur, India, with sword, spear and shield, plus unarmed sarit sarak, which not all sources include. Competition is the phunaba duel with a leather stick.
Quick Facts
IndiaCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Thang-Ta (Huyen Langlon)
Thang-ta is, according to Green, the popular Manipuri name for a body of armed and unarmed fighting techniques created by the Meitei in the state of Manipur. Thang means sword and ta spear. According to Green, the formal name of the system is Huyen Lallong, the art of war, and the Manipur University of Culture lists both names as synonyms. The teaching script of the Indian University Grants Commission, by contrast, treats Huiyen Lalong as a broader concept that includes thang-ta. The founder in Meitei mythology is the forefather Pakhangba, while we have not found a historical founder or a year of origin.
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After the Anglo-Manipur War and the incorporation of Manipur into the British Empire in 1891, the British, according to Green, banned Manipuris from keeping weapons and outlawed the martial arts, thang-ta included. According to him the art survived in seclusion with a few masters and slowly returned after 1947. Master Huidrom Premkumar states in the press that a local raja had already revived it in 1930. The Thang-Ta Federation of India was founded on 21 November 1993 in Imphal. According to the federation, the competitive phunaba duel is fought with a cheibee leather stick instead of a sword, with or without a chungoi shield. According to the government press service PIB, the Ministry of Sports included thang-ta in the Khelo India Youth Games 2021, and the Manipur University of Culture teaches it at bachelor's and master's level.
History
In Martial Arts of the World, where the article was written by Sohini Ray, Green records a tradition from Meitei mythology according to which the limbs and bones of the primal father Tin sidaba, also called Pakhangba, turned into swords and implements, some of which are used in thang-ta. The broad sword thangjao came from the ribs. According to Green, the creation story Leishemlon names Pakhangba as the originator of thang-ta. According to the website EastMojo, the Thang-Ta Federation of India places the beginnings in the years 1404 to 1432, when King Punshiba set up a military office, and according to the federation's tradition, under King Pamheiba in the years 1709 to 1748 every man over sixteen had to serve the state a set number of days a year and train in fighting. According to Green, thang-ta reached its peak under King Khagemba.
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According to the federation's chairman H. Premkumar Singh, when Manipur was a princely state, thang-ta was a compulsory subject of military training and competitions were held before the king. After its defeat in the Anglo-Manipur War, Manipur was annexed to the British Empire in 1891. According to Green, the British immediately banned Manipuris from holding weapons and outlawed the Manipuri martial arts, including thang-ta. A teaching script of the University Grants Commission of India says that after 1891 nobody was allowed to walk down the street even with a stick in hand. According to Green, the art survived in seclusion with a few masters and gradually returned after India gained independence in 1947. The Manipur University of Culture states that from 1976 thang-ta was performed at festivals and abroad. In the newspaper The Shillong Times, Master Huidrom Premkumar states that thang-ta was revived by a local raja in 1930 and then led by his guru Rajkumar Sanahan, after whose death in 1988 Premkumar took over the leadership himself.
How it differs
The sources differ on how the names relate. Green and the Manipur University of Culture take Huyen Lallong as another name for thang-ta and place the unarmed combat sarit sarak in its repertoire. The study script of India's University Grants Commission takes Huiyen Lalong as a broader term for the art of war and weapons, to which thang-ta belongs, and places muknu and sarit sarak among the unarmed arts. The cheibi competitions were run by the Manipur government in 2020 as a separate discipline alongside thang-ta, but the thang-ta federation runs the duel with the cheibee stick and chungoi shield as its own competition phunaba. According to Green, thang-ta is the basis of classical Manipuri dance and to the dancers of nata sankirtana with drums and cymbals.
Technique
Green divides the traditional thang-ta repertoire into four categories, ta-khousarol (spear dance), thanghairol (swordsmanship), sarit-sarat (unarmed combat) and thengkourol (the art of touch and calling). In ta-khousarol the practitioner holds the spear ta in the right hand and the shield chungoi in the left. According to Green the spear is bamboo, about five feet or longer, with a blade on both sides, and the shield is about three feet long and one and a half feet wide.
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According to Green, thanghairol includes ornamental swordsmanship leiteng-thang and combat swordsmanship yanna-thang. The master carries a shield and three swords, one for the right hand, one for the left and a spare on the back, which he uses as an arrow in an emergency. In typical leiteng-thang he circles two swords around the body in a figure eight without touching. According to Green the thang sword is about two feet long, straight or slightly curved. According to Green, sarit-sarat begins with somersaults and rolling on the ground and continues with unarmed attack and defence, strikes and kicks against a sudden attack and defence against an armed opponent. According to Green, thengkourol are ceremonial movements along the symbolic diagram paphal, a coiled snake. It serves as magical practice, not direct combat, is kept secret and never performed in public. Only a trusted pupil of a guru, over forty years old, may learn it. Federation chairman H. Premkumar Singh also counts sarit sarak, physical and breathing exercises, spiritual teaching and meditation in thang-ta.
Training
According to Green, training begins with the ceremony of admission of Ojha Boriba. A candle is lit before the image of Pakhangba, the originator and ruling deity of thang-ta, and the student offers fruit, cloth, betel leaves and nuts, a candle and a symbolic fee, usually one rupee. Green cites the rules of the Hula Sindamsang school in Imphal, under which the training ground is entered barefoot, the student bows to the teacher, to Pakhangba and to the partner, touches a weapon with fingertips and forehead before lifting it, never with the feet. After basic exercises in balance, flexibility, agility, endurance and coordination, beginners train, according to Green, with sticks of various sizes. Swords, shield and spear follow once the student is fit enough for real weapons. EastMojo states that sword fighting and unarmed combat sharit-sharak are practised, and that training includes physical and breathing exercises, spiritual teaching, natural healing and meditation.
Ranks and progression
We have not found a system of belts or grades. The Technical Committee of the Thang-Ta Federation of India lists only grandmaster, deputy grandmaster and instructor titles. According to Green, a student first learns with sticks and moves to real weapons only when skilled enough, and only a trusted student over forty may learn the doctrine of thengkourol.
Competition
According to the Thang-Ta Federation of India, the first national thang-ta championship was held in Imphal from 21 to 25 November 1993, and the federation was founded the same day. According to federation president H. Premkumar Singh, competitions divide into the phunaba duel and the solo performance kanglon chatpa. Phunaba ahanba is fought with the cheibee stick, or phunachei, covered in soft leather, and a leather shield chungoi, without kicks, and phunaba anishuba with the stick only, without a shield and with kicks. According to him, a stick replaces the sword so as not to frighten young students in the arena. The solo performance has five disciplines: fencing with two ornamental swords, fencing with one sword, open-hand fighting, long stick and spear. According to EastMojo, fights are held in a circular arena thirty feet across, any part of the body above the waist can be hit, and the shield may serve only for defence. A bout has two rounds of two to three minutes with a one-minute rest and is led by a referee with six scoring judges. At the Khelo India Youth Games 2025, according to The Shillong Times, competition took place in four weight categories.
Today
In December 2020 the Ministry of Sports, according to the government press service PIB, included gatka, kalaripayattu, thang-ta and mallakhamb in the Khelo India Youth Games 2021, which were held in Panchkula in June 2022. PIB then wrote that thang-ta had fallen into oblivion in recent decades. According to PIB, thang-ta is among the original games supported by the Khelo India programme, and in 2024 PIB listed thang-ta training centres in Imphal, in Assam and in Tripura. Thang-ta was also contested at the Khelo India Youth Games 2025 in Gaya. Manipur University of Culture has a thang-ta department with bachelor's and master's study. The federation, according to its website, presented thang-ta in 2012 at a martial arts festival on the Iranian island of Kish, and in 2013 and 2014 at a festival in Chungju, South Korea. The first world championship took place in March 2011 in Imphal with competitors from Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Nepal and India.
Did you know
According to Green, each of the seven Meitei clans still has a traditional sword of a distinctive shape, which must be displayed at every ancestor worship. According to Green, the Chainarol manuscript from the 16th to 17th century describes war customs under which the one who first bled lost, the opponents then ate and drank together and the winner cut off the loser's head. According to the agency PTI, the thang-ta guru Kakchingtabam Shanathoiba Sharma was selected in 2023 for the Padma Shri award, which his uncle and teacher Gurumayum Gourakishore Sharma had also received earlier.
Frequently asked questions
What does thang-ta mean?
Thang means sword and ta spear. According to Green, the formal name of the system is Huyen Lallong, the art of war.
Is thang-ta competition fought with a real sword?
No. According to the Thang-Ta Federation of India, the phunaba duel is fought with a cheibee stick covered in soft leather, with or without a chungoi shield.
Why was thang-ta banned?
After Manipur was incorporated into the British Empire in 1891, the British, according to Green, banned Manipuris from keeping weapons and outlawed the Manipuri martial arts, thang-ta included.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.