For decades, the carved stones of Lianpui village stood quietly in the hills of east Mizoram’s Champhai district. Locals called them Lungphun Ropui or “great memorial stones.” Now, these same silent sentinels have been officially recognised as a Monument of National Importance by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), as confirmed by officials this Friday.
Mizoram’s Lianpui Stones Declared Monument Of National Importance
For a village perched 54 km southeast of Champhai town, right near the India-Myanmar border, this is no ordinary deal. The stones, 114 in total, are intricately carved menhirs and stand tall in deliberate north-south and east-west alignments, as reported by the Hindustan Times. Some rise as high as 1.87 metres. Each bears witness to a time before Christianity arrived in Mizoram, with human figures, birds, mithun heads, gongs, lizards, and motifs carved painstakingly into stone. The carvings capture a cultural history that locals have always known instinctively mattered, and finally, they have the official stamp as a testimony to this.
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The Gem Of Mizoram
The village of Lianpui is said to have been established in the 18th century CE by a Lusei chief named Lianpuia, who left his name as both a marker and a memory. Did you know this is not the first time Mizoram’s megalithic legacy has caught the nation’s eye? Back in 2015, Kawtchhuah Ropui, or the Great Entranceway in Vangchhia village, 20 km south of Lianpui, got its own Monument of National Importance tag.
For the Lianpui stones, the process started officially in February 2021. That’s when a preliminary notification was published in the Gazette of India under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. ASI Director, A.M.V. Subramanyam, visited Lianpui on July 7 this year, confirming that final steps were underway. And finally, the Ministry of Culture issued the formal notification on July 14 2025.
Rajya Sabha MP K Vanlalvena, who had raised the matter in Parliament as recently as March, expressed gratitude for the outcome, Hindustan Times reported. The residents of Lianpui expressed their thanks too, many of whom appreciated both Vanlalvena and Art and Culture Minister C Lalsawimraw for helping secure the recognition.
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The megaliths themselves seem to echo that thought, arranged across the landscape in eight careful alignments with four facing north-south and four east-west direction. They stand like frozen lines from an ancient poem. And now they are finally being given the recognition they always deserved.
Cover Image Courtesy: mizozeitgeist/X