Ngawang Drakpa (Gyaltsen) (Tibetan: ངག་དབང་གྲགས་པ་རྒྱལ་མཚན, Wylie: Ngag dbang grags pa rgyal mts'an, d. 1603 or 1604) was a king in Central Tibet who ruled from 1554 to 1556/57, and again from 1576 to 1603/04.
[1] Ngawang Drakpa Gyaltsen was the son of Drowai Gonpo (1508–1548), a sub-ruler who resided in Gongri Karpo to the south-west of Lhasa.
[4] Nevertheless, the Phagmodrupa still filled a role as a focal point around which politics in Ü (East Central Tibet) revolved and different groups balanced each other.
[5] The Chinese dynastic annals, the Mingshi, assert that a new Phagmodrupa ruler sought investiture from the Emperor in 1564, but in fact China had very little interest in Tibet at this time.
[7] The result of the visit was that the Gelugpa sect established lasting relations with the Mongols, and that their leader acquired the title Dalai Lama.
Although the Phagmodrupa led a Kagyu school of Buddhism, Ngawang Drakpa Gyaltsen supported Sonam Gyatso and the Gelugpa.
As his thoughts had been purified, because he was bound to the omniscient Sonam Gyatso by the links which pass between a chaplain and a giver of oblations, similar to those uniting the moon and the sun, the Chinese Emperor's court was constantly sending offerings to Gong[ri] Kar[po].