[2][b] In 1704, Charairongba, the incumbent King became the first royal figure to be initiated into Vaishnavism — coins inscribing "Sri Krishna" were minted in the aftermath and Hindu temples constructed for the first time but there is no evidence that the public sphere was affected to any substantial degree.
[2] Five years later, his son Pamheiba ascended to the throne; he followed Meitei funerary rituals upon Charairongba's death and shew no inclination towards Vaishnavism, providing selective patronage to shrines for lais.
[2] However, in 1715, he adopted the Sakta tradition under one Bengali Brahmin and two years later, followed his father into being initiated as a Gaudiya Vaishnava; nonetheless, while Hindu temples were increasingly commissioned, patronage of Meitei sites continued as before.
[2] Pamheiba also tried to unify the masses under a single religio-cultural authority, extensively Hindu-ising the cultural milieu in the process — mass-conversion rites were frequently held, translation of Puranas and Ramayana were commissioned,[c] Hindu cultural norms like prohibition on beef were legalized, and Meitei festivals were hybridized with Hindu ones while lai shrines were destroyed, images of Meitei deities dismantled and recast into coins, and worship of some lais consigned only to the Brahmins.
[2] In contemporary Meitei culture, which bears a deep ambivalence towards mainland India (and Hindu ethos), Pamheiba's reign serves as a moment of rupture in their transcendental history.
[19] Carmen Brandt, Jyotirmoy Ray, and others have doubted the historicity of the libricide and criticized scholars who had uncritically accepted the popular narratives; they note that local sources give low and contradictory values about the number of burnt scripts, highlight the numerous documents that were written in Meitei during and well after the reign of Pamheiba including the very Cheitharol Kumbaba, and interpret Nawaz's attitude towards religion as one of strategic ambivalence than as one of missionary zeal.