The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s3.117

v4.c23.s3.117

Mahadammayaza-dipati (1733–52). Manipur had sent propitiatory tribute to Bayinnaung (1551–81) but thereafter went her own way, and occasionally made raids. The country bred famous ponies; in those days every man had two or three, and polo, played forty a side throughout the villages, produced a race of horsemen.² Under their raja, Gharīb Nawāz (1714–54), the Manipurī raiders became a terror; from 1724 till his death they came nearly every other year sweeping the country up to Ava and carrying off loot, cattle and thousands of people. Once they massacred two-thirds of a royal army including the commander, who was drunk. In 1738 they burnt every house and monastery under the walls of Ava and stormed the stockade built to protect the Kaunghmudaw pagoda, slaughtering the garrison like cattle in a pen and killing a minister of the Hluttaw council. They had recently been converted to Hinduism by preachers who said that if they bathed in the Irrawaddy river at Sagaing all blessedness would attend them. In 1744 their chief Brāhman actually came to Ava to convert the Golden Palace, but after staying a month he fell ill and died, whereupon his suite of Brāhmans returned home.³