During the 11th & 12th Century, rulers took control of Muang Sua, the historical region of the kingdom of Luang Prabang in northern Laos. During this period, Mahayana Buddhism replaced Theravada Buddhism as the dominant religious ideology of the ruling classes. Epigraphical sources confirm that the early Lao kingdoms display the first clear signs of the Buddhicization of royal power around the middle of the fifteenth century when kings were labeled "cakkavatti" (Pali for king as the 'turner of the wheel of the Buddhist dhamma').