Brief accounts of Narsai's reign are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (floruit 1280) and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari (twelfth-century), ʿAmr (fourteenth-century) and Sliba (fourteenth-century).
A long and detailed account of the schism of Narsai and Elishaʿ is given in the Chronicle of Seert.
[1] The following account of Narsai's reign is given by Bar Hebraeus: Shila died after a while in office.
Each of them began to appoint bishops for the vacant churches, and ultimately Elishaʿ prevailed with the support of the king and shut up Narsaï in a prison.
Narsaï died shortly afterwards, and Elishaʿ began to hope that he would be firmly established in the leadership; but the bishops assembled together and degraded him from his rank.