KHWANGLI LAIKHAN: A primitive loin dress for Meitei(male)

    Since the ancient time the Meitei community had developed different modes of wearing traditional male loin dress. According to the Meitei mythological Khwangli Laikhan is also one of the most primitive loin dressing  style of male . As recorded in the Leithak Leikharol(ancient manuscripts) there is an episode of trial of wisdom between two mythological heroes, Ashiba and Konjin Tuthokpa, that followed after the creation of world.Konjin Tuthokpa came out successful in the trial and he became the ruler of the world so created. When he assumed that position, he said to have dressed in Khwangli Laikhan .

  

Khwangli Laikhan

For this mode of wearing loin cloth, a rope of plaited or twisted fibre is tied in the form of a belt around the waist. And a cloth measuring 1.50m in length is draped between the thighs with the two ends hanging down freely from the waist belt, one to the front and the other at the back .The hanging ends reach down to half the length of the thighs. In this style of wearing only the private part of body is well covered .This type of wearing loincloth for male is not found nowadays.