Ngawang Namgyal (later granted the honorific
Zhabdrung Rinpoche, approximately
at whose feet one submits) (; alternate spellings include
Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel; 1594–1651) was a
Tibetan Buddhist lama and the unifier of
Bhutan as a nation-state. In addition to unifying the various warring fiefdoms for the first time in the 1630s, he also sought to create a distinct
Bhutanese cultural identity separate from the
Tibetan culture from which it was derived.