During one period around 1500 the Rinpungpa lords came close to assembling the Tibetan lands around the Yarlung Tsangpo River under one authority, but their powers receded after 1512.

With the united troops from Rong and Shang, Norzang seized the important place Samdrubtse, modern Shigatse, from the governor of the Chonggye family.

The increasing importance of the Buddhist sects in this period made it crucial for secular rulers to seek support from religious networks.

This included comprehensive economic dispositions; 2,800 nomadic households were donated to the Shamarpa for providing butter-lamp offerings, and all the monks of Yangpachen were granted a daily measure of barley.

The years around 1500 saw the high tide of Rinpungpa power, and the authority of Donyo Dorje was almost absolute, being supported by the Karmapa and Shamarpa hierarchs.

[5] Due to pressure from the Rinpungpa, who favoured the Karma Kagyu, the Gelugpa school were forbidden to participate in the new year celebration and the great Monlam ceremony in Lhasa between 1498 and 1517.

In spite of Rinpungpa patronage the hierarchs of the Karma Kagyu, Karmapa and Shamarpa, were adverse to being closely controlled by the secular lords.

He was friendly disposed to the Gelugpa leader Gedun Gyatso (posthumously counted as the second Dalai Lama), which at this stage did not exclude heartily relations with the Karma Kagyu.

In 1532 the Rinpungpa domains were briefly threatened by an invasion by the Muslim general Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, operating on the orders of Sultan Said Khan, the ruler of Kashgar.

In 1565, finally, the learned and cultivated Rinpungpa ruler Ngawang Jigme Drakpa was defeated by Karma Tseten through a surprise attack.

[12] The most detailed account, The New Red Annals (1538), was written by Panchen Sonam Dragpa who extolled the achievements of the Phagmodrupa kings at the expense of the Rinpung lords, who were depicted as a destabilizing, power-hungry force.

The chronicle of the Fifth Dalai Lama, The Song of the Spring Queen (1643), gives a more balanced picture: although sometimes characterized as devious and beset by "fierce pride", the rulers had great cultural and religious interests.

They funded new monasteries, commissioned precious artwork such as gilded Buddhas and thangkas, and at least one of them, Ngawang Jigme Drakpa (d. 1597), was a gifted author whose works are still read.

[14] The family eventually fell from power for the same reasons as the Phagmodrupa: they had to uphold a fragile balance among autonomous local lords which broke down when a number of dissatisfied elements sided with the new Tsangpa polity.