Ngawang Namgyal (later granted the honorific Shabdrung, approximately at whose feet one submits) (Tibetan: ཞབས་དྲུང་ངག་དབང་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་, Wylie: Zhabs-drung Ngag-dbang Rnam-rgyal; 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 distinctly Bhutanese cultural identity, separate from the Tibetan culture from which it was derived.