A theocratic government independent of Tibetan political influence is established in the Bhutan region in the seventeenth century, and premodern Bhutan emerges.

The theocratic government is founded by an expatriate Drukpa monk, Ngawang Namgyal, who arrivei in Bhutan in 1616 seeking freedom from the domination of the Gelugpa subsect led by the Dalai Lama (Ocean Lama) in Lhasa.

After a series of victories over rival subsect leaders and Tibetan invaders, Ngawang Namgyal takes the title shabdrung (At Whose Feet One Submits, or, in many Western sources, dharma raja), becoming the temporal and spiritual leader of Bhutan.

Considered the first great historical figure of Bhutan, he unites the leaders of powerful Bhutanese families in a land called Drukyul.

He promulgates a code of law and builds a network of impregnable dzong, a system that helps bring local lords under centralized control and strengthens the country against Tibetan invasions.

Many dzong are extant in the early twenty-first century.