![Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Shabdrung_Ngawang_Namgyal.jpg)
Zhabdrung (also Shabdrung; ; "before the feet of ones submit") was a title used when referring to or addressing great lamas in Tibet, particularly those who held a hereditary lineage. In
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
the title almost always refers to
Ngawang Namgyal
Ngawang Namgyal (later granted the honorific Zhabdrung Rinpoche, approximately "at whose feet one submits") (; alternate spellings include ''Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel''; 1594–1651) and known colloquially as The Bearded Lama, was a Tibetan Buddh ...
(1594–1651), the founder of the Bhutanese state, or one of his successive
reincarnation
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a ...
s.
Ngawang Namgyal
The lineage traces through the founder of the country, Ngawang Namgyal, a high
Drukpa Lineage
The Drukpa Kagyu (), or simply Drukpa, sometimes called either Dugpa or "Red Hat sect" in older sources, lama
Lama (; "chief") is a title for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term ''guru'', meaning "heavy one", endowed with qualities the student will eventually embody. The Tibetan word "lama" means "hi ...
from Tibet who was the first to unify the warring valley kingdoms under a single rule. He is revered as the third most important figure behind
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ("Born from a Lotus"), also known as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who may have taught Vajrayana in Tibet (circa 8th – 9th centuries)... According ...
and
Shakyamuni Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
by the Drukpa Lineage of the
Kagyu
The ''Kagyu'' school, also transliterated as ''Kagyü'', or ''Kagyud'' (), which translates to "Oral Lineage" or "Whispered Transmission" school, is one of the main schools (''chos lugs'') of Tibetan (or Himalayan) Buddhism. The Kagyu lineag ...
school of
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
.
Ngawang Namgyal established the
dual system of government
The Dual System of Government is the traditional diarchal political system of Tibetan peoples whereby the Desi (temporal ruler) coexists with the spiritual authority of the realm, usually unified under a third single ruler. The actual distribut ...
under the "Great
Tsa Yig
The Cha Yig () is any monastic constitution or code of moral discipline based on codified Tibetan Buddhist precepts. Every Tibetan monastery and convent had its own Cha Yig, and the variation in Cha Yig content shows a degree of autonomy and inter ...
" legal code. Under this system, political power was vested in an administrative leader, the
Druk Desi
The Druk Desi ( Dzongkha: འབྲུག་སྡེ་སྲིད་; Wylie:'' 'brug sde-srid''; also called " Deb Raja")The original title is Dzongkha: སྡེ་སྲིད་ཕྱག་མཛོད་; Wylie: ''sde-srid phyag-mdzod''. ...
, assisted by a collection of local governors or ministers called
penlop
Penlop ( Dzongkha: དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''dpon-slob''; also spelled Ponlop, Pönlop) is a Dzongkha term roughly translated as governor. Bhutanese penlops, prior to unification, controlled certain districts of the country, but n ...
s. A religious leader, the
Je Khenpo
The Je Khenpo (; "The Chief Abbot of the Central Monastic Body of Bhutan"), formerly called the ''Dharma Raja'' by orientalists, is the title given to the senior religious hierarch of Bhutan. His primary duty is to lead the Dratshang Lhentshog ...
, held power over monastic affairs. Successive incarnations of the Zhabdrung were to have ultimate authority over both spheres.
However, after the death of Ngawang Namgyal in 1651, power effectively passed to the penlops instead of to a successor ''Zhabdrung''. In order to forestall a dynastic struggle and a return to warlordism, they conspired to keep the death of the Zhabdrung secret for 54 years. During this time they issued orders in his name, explaining that he was on an extended silent retreat.
The passing of the 1st ''Zhabdrung'' is modernly celebrated as a
Bhutanese national holiday, falling on the 3rd. month, 10th day of the Bhutanese calendar.
Successor Zhabdrungs
Eventually, the ruling authorities in Bhutan were faced with the problem of succession. To neutralize the power of future Zhabdrung incarnations, the Druk Desi, Je Khenpo and penlops conspired to recognize not a single person but rather as three separate persons — a ''body incarnation'' (''Ku
tulku
A ''tulku'' (, also ''tülku'', ''trulku'') is a reincarnate custodian of a specific lineage of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism who is given empowerments and trained from a young age by students of his or her predecessor.
High-profile examples ...
''), a ''mind incarnation'' (''Thu tulku'' or ''Thugtrul''), and a ''speech incarnation'' (''Sung tulku'' or ''Sungtrul''). In spite of their efforts to consolidate the power established by the original Zhabdrung, the country sank into warring factionalism for the next 200 years. The body incarnation lineage died out in the mid-18th century, while the mind and speech incarnations of the Zhabdrung continued into the 20th century. The mind incarnation was the one generally recognized as the ''Zhabdrung''.
Besides the mind incarnation, there was also a line of claimants for the speech incarnation. At the time the monarchy was founded in 1907,
Choley Yeshe Ngodub (or Chogley Yeshey Ngodrup) was the speech incarnation and also served as the last Druk Desi. After his death in 1917, he was succeeded by Chogley Jigme Tenzin (1919–1949). The next claimant, unrecognized by the Bhutan government, lived at
Tawang monastery
Tawang Monastery, located in Tawang city of Tawang district in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, is the largest monastery in India. It is situated in the valley of the Tawang Chu, near the small town of the same name in the northwestern p ...
in India and was evacuated to the western Himalayas during the 1962
Sino-Indian War
The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tib ...
.
[
Another line of claimants to be mind incarnations of Ngawang Namgyal existed in Tibet, and is now represented by ]Namkhai Norbu
Namkhai Norbu (; 8 December 1938 – 27 September 2018) was a Tibetan Buddhist master of Dzogchen and a professor of Tibetan and Mongolian language and literature at Naples Eastern University. He was a leading authority on Tibetan culture, part ...
, who resides in Italy.
Principal reincarnation lineages
Zhabdrung Thuktrul
"Mind" reincarnations of the Zhabdrung.
Zhabdrung Sungtrul
"Speech" reincarnations of the Zhabdrung.
7.
1986-
Passang Wangdi
Born Thimphu above Tashichhodzong
Zhabdrung deposed and exiled
In 1907, in an effort to reform the dysfunctional system, the penlops orchestrated the establishment of a Bhutanese monarchy with Ugyen Wangchuck
''Gongsar'' Ugyen Wangchuck ( dz, ཨོ་རྒྱན་དབང་ཕྱུག, ; 11 June 1862 – 26 August 1926) was the first Druk Gyalpo (King) of Bhutan from 1907 to 1926. In his lifetime, he made efforts to unite the fledgling country a ...
, the penlop
Penlop ( Dzongkha: དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''dpon-slob''; also spelled Ponlop, Pönlop) is a Dzongkha term roughly translated as governor. Bhutanese penlops, prior to unification, controlled certain districts of the country, but n ...
of Trongsa
Trongsa, previously Tongsa (, ), is a Thromde or town, and the capital of Trongsa District in central Bhutan. The name means "new village" in Dzongkha. The first temple was built in 1543 by the Drukpa lama Ngagi Wangchuck, who was the great-gran ...
installed as hereditary king, with the support of Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
and against the wishes of Tibet. The royal family suffered from questions of legitimacy in its early years, with the reincarnations of the various Zhabdrungs posing a threat. According to one Drukpa source, the Zhabdrung's brother Chhoki Gyeltshen (who had been to India) challenged the 1926 accession of King Jigme Wangchuck
Jigme Wangchuck ( dz, འཇིགས་མེད་དབང་ཕྱུག, ; 1905 – 30 March 1952) was the 2nd Druk Gyalpo or king of Bhutan from 26 August 1926, until his death. He pursued legal and infrastructural reform during his reign ...
. He was rumored to have met with Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
to garner support for the Zhabdrung against the king. The 7th Zhabdrung, Jigme Dorji was then "retired" to Talo Monastery
Talo Monastery is a Buddhist monastery located in the hills above Punakha, Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in th ...
and died in 1931, under rumors of assassination. He was the last Zhabdrung recognized by Bhutan; subsequent claimants to the incarnation have not been recognized by the government.[
In 1962, Jigme Ngawang Namgyal (known as Zhabdrung Rinpoche to his followers) fled Bhutan for ]India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
where he spent the remainder of his life. Up until 2002, Bhutanese pilgrims were able to journey to Kalimpong
Kalimpong (Hindi: कलिम्पोंग) is a town and the headquarters of an eponymous district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located at an average elevation of . The town is the headquarters of the Kalimpong district. The re ...
, just south of Bhutan, to visit him. On April 5, 2003, the Zhabdrung died. Some of his followers claim he was poisoned,[ ] while the Bhutanese national newspaper, ''Kuensel
{{Contains special characters, Tibetan
''Kuensel'' ( dz, ཀུན་གསལ།, ''Clarity'') is the national newspaper of the Kingdom of Bhutan. It was the only local newspaper available in Bhutan until 2006 when two more newspapers were la ...
'', took pains to explain he died after an extended bout with cancer.
His successor jigme jigdrel namgyel, was born in 2003.
References
*
*
*
External links
{{authority control
State religion in Bhutan
Buddhism in Bhutan
Tibetan Buddhist titles
Tibetan Buddhists from Bhutan
Bhutanese lamas
Bhutanese Buddhist monks
Drukpa Kagyu lamas
Bhutan history-related lists