[1] The regime was founded by Karma Tseten, a low-born retainer of the prince of the Rinpungpa dynasty and governor of Samdrubtsé (also called Shigatse) in Tsang (West-Central Tibet) since 1548.

The alliance between the 3rd Dalai Lama and the Tumed leader Altan Khan (1578) likely aroused the fear of some aristocratic families in Ü-Tsang and of the non-Gelug schools.

[4] The new dynasty strove to keep Tibet free from the recurring Mongol incursions which plagued the land on several occasions in the late 16th and early 17th century.

[6] This was partly successful; the last remains of Rinpungpa authority vanished in 1590 as they were forced to capitulate their heartland Rong to Karma Tseten.

[9] He was less successful against Bhutan, where his enemy, Ngawang Namgyal, the prince abbot of Ralung Monastery and the 4th incarnation of Kuenkhyen Padma KarpoFounder of the Drukpa Kagyu Sect in Tsang had taken refuge.

The Tsang Desi had politically backed the other incarnation Passam WangpoGyalwang Drukpa, forcing Ngawang Namgyal to flee to Bhutan and establish his regency there.

The new Tsangpa king Karma Tenkyong was defeated and besieged at Chakpori Hill by Lhasa, and his army only escaped annihilation through the intervention of the Panchen Lama.

Karma Tenkyong sought the assistance of the Choghtu Mongols, and a troop under prince Arsalan invaded Tibet in 1635 in order to attack the Gelugpa positions.

However, in the end Arsalan declined to actually support the Tsangpa, leading to an entirely unsatisfactory conclusion of the enterprise for Karma Tenkyong and the Karmapa and Shamarpa hierarchs.

[14] In 1641, the leader of the Khoshut Mongols of the Kokonor region, Güshi Khan, set out from his home area and attacked the king of Beri in Kham, who was a practitioner of the Bon religion and persecuted Buddhist lamas.

After a revolt by Tsangpa supporters in the same year, the incensed Güshi Khan ordered Karma Tenkyong placed in an oxhide bag and drowned in a river.

[15] Güshi Khan, who founded the Khoshut Khanate, presented Ü, Tsang and part of East Tibet to the Dalai Lama to rule.