Row over TDB’s ban on using temple for martial arts training

Subject: History

Section: ART AND CULTURE

What are the Various Martial Art Forms in India?

Thang Ta – Manipur:

Huyen langlon is an Indian martial art from Manipur.
In the Meitei language, huyen means war while langlon or langlong can mean net, knowledge or art.
Huyen langlon consists of two main components:
Thang-ta (armed combat)
Sarit Sarak (unarmed fighting).
The primary weapons of huyenlanglon are the thang (sword) and ta (spear). Other weapons include the shield and the axe.

Lathi Khela – West Bengal:

Lathi is a wooden weapon to fight and is an ancient weapon used in martial arts in India.
Lathi or stick are used in martial arts in the state of Punjab and Bengal.
Lathi is also popular for its utility in sports specially in the Indian villages.
A practitioner is known as lathial.

Gatka – Punjab:

Gatka is a traditional martial art form associated with the Sikh gurus.
It imbibes sword and sticks fighting skills and self-control.
Gatka is believed to have originated when the 6th Sikh Guru Hargobind adopted ‘Kirpan’ for self-defense during the Mughal era.
A style of stick fighting between two or more practitioners, Gatka is a toned-down version of the deadlier Shastar Vidya. The sharp swords of Shastar Vidya have been replaced by wooden sticks (soti) and shields in Gatka.
It is considered as a battle technique.
10th Guru Gobind Singh made it compulsory for everyone to use the weapons for self-defense.

Kalaripayattu – Kerala

Kalaripayattu is a martial art based on the ancient knowledge of the human body.
It originated in Kerala during the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD. It is now practiced in Kerala and in some parts of Tamil Nadu.
The place where this martial art is practiced is called a ‘Kalari’. It is a Malayalam word that signifies a kind of gymnasium. Kalari literally means ‘threshing floor’ or ‘battlefield’. The word Kalari first appears in the Tamil Sangam literature to describe both a battlefield and combat arena.
It is considered to be one of the oldest fighting systems in existence.
It is also considered as the father of modern Kung – Fu.

Mallakhamb- Madhya Pradesh

Mallakhamb is a traditional sport, originating from the Indian subcontinent, in which a gymnast performs aerial yoga or gymnastic postures and wrestling grips with a vertical stationary or hanging wooden pole, cane, or rope.
The name Mallakhamb derives from the terms malla, meaning wrestler, and khamb, which means a pole. Literally meaning “wrestling pole”, the term refers to a traditional training implement used by wrestlers.
Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have been the hotspots of this sport.