Zhabdrung Rinpoche

Zhabdrung (also Shabdrung; Tibetan: ཞབས་དྲུང་, Wylie: zhabs-drung; "before the feet of ones submit") was a title used when referring to or addressing great lamas in Tibet, particularly those who held a hereditary lineage.

Under this system, political power was vested in an administrative leader, the Druk Desi, assisted by a collection of local governors or ministers called penlops.

In spite of their efforts to consolidate the power established by the original Zhabdrung, the country sank into warring factionalism for the next 200 years.

At the time the monarchy was founded in 1907, Choley Yeshe Ngodub (or Chogley Yeshey Ngodrup) was the speech incarnation and also served as the last Druk Desi.

[4] The next claimant, unrecognized by the Bhutan government, lived at Tawang monastery in India and was evacuated to the western Himalayas during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

[3]: 28 Another line of claimants to be the mind incarnation of Ngawang Namgyal existed in Tibet, and is now represented by Namkhai Norbu, who resides in Italy.

Some of his followers claim he was poisoned,[24] while the Bhutanese national newspaper, Kuensel, took pains to explain he died after an extended bout with cancer.