Puya Meithaba

Puya Meithaba (Burning of the puya), or Lairik Meithaba, refers to the annual commemoration of a legendary 18th-century scripture burning in post-colonial Manipur by a neo-convert Vaishnavite King, or to the original libricide of Puyas itself. There is no historical evidence that the libricide was planned, much less that it did happen. Nonetheless, the commemoration, organised by the Meitei National Front and others since 1979, has been a critical tool in the spread of Meitei nationalism and has mainstreamed a particular reconstruction of premodern Manipur, which has come to be uncritically reproduced even in academic publications.