Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel

Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel, (1594–1651) known colloquially as The Bearded Lama, was a Tibetan Buddhist lama and the unifier of Bhutan as a nation-state. In addition to unifying the various warring fiefdoms for the first time in the 1630s, he also sought a distinct Bhutanese cultural identity separate from the Tibetan culture from which it was derived.
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Category:1594 births
Category:1650s deaths
Category:Tibetan Buddhist lamas
Category:Bhutanese people