Ngawang Namgyal
Bhutanese Lama (1594–1651) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Not to be confused with Ngawang Namgyal (Rinpungpa).
Ngawang Namgyal (1594–1651), known colloquially as The Bearded Lama, was a Tibetan Buddhist Drukpa Kagyu school Rinpoche, and the unifier of Bhutan as a nation-state. He was later granted the honorific title Zhabdrung Rinpoche, approximately "at whose feet one submits") (Tibetan: ཞབས་དྲུང་ངག་དབང་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་, Wylie: zhabs drung ngag dbang rnam rgyal; alternate spellings include Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel). In addition to unifying the various warring fiefdoms for the first time in the 1630s, he also sought to create a distinct Bhutanese cultural identity separate from the Tibetan culture from which it was derived.