Dpon-chen

The dpon-chen or pönchen (Chinese: 本欽; pinyin: Běnqīn), literally the "great authority" or "great administrator", was the chief administrator or governor of Tibet based at the Sakya Monastery during the Yuan dynasty.

The office was established in the 1260s and functioned as the Tibetan local government serving the Yuan emperors, unlike the Sakya Imperial Preceptors (Dishi) who were active in the Yuan imperial court.

The Yuan dynasty set up a government agency and top-level administrative department known as the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs in Dadu (modern-day Beijing) that supervised Buddhist monks in addition to managing the territory of Tibet; one of the department's purposes was to select a dpon-chen to govern Tibet when the Sakya Lama (e.g. Drogön Chögyal Phagpa) was away.

The Dpon-Chen was invariably a Tibetan nominated by the ruling Sakya Lama and approved by the reigning emperor.

While dpon-chens had a small army in Sakya itself, their major military support came from the Yuan imperial court when an internal rebellion or external invasion occurred.