Trongsa Penlop

The Trongsa Penlop (Dzongkha: ཀྲོང་གསར་དཔོན་སློབ་, Krong gSar dPon sLob), also rendered Chhoetse Penlop, was the governor of the central and eastern regions of Bhutan under the country's pre-1907 dual system of government. The office was established in the mid-17th century by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal as part of a decentralised secular administration answerable, in theory, to the Druk Desi at Punakha. Over two centuries it became the most powerful regional post in Bhutan, and in 1907 its twelfth holder, Ugyen Wangchuck, was enthroned as the first hereditary Druk Gyalpo. Since the founding of the monarchy the title has been carried by the Crown Prince and serves as the formal designation of the heir apparent.

The word penlop (དཔོན་སློབ་) is conventionally translated as "governor" and is sometimes likened to the European title of duke. Trongsa was one of several such governorships — others included Paro, Daga and, at various times, Wangdue Phodrang — but its jurisdiction was the largest and its revenues the greatest. The Trongsa Penlop sat at Trongsa Dzong, formally known as Chökhor Rabtentse Dzong, and commanded the east–west route through the country.

Origins under the dual system

After Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal unified the Bhutanese valleys in the first half of the 17th century, he organised the country on what later writers call the chhoesi system — a dual arrangement in which spiritual authority rested with the Je Khenpo and temporal authority with the Druk Desi. In practice the Zhabdrung's direct successors proved unable to control the distant eastern valleys, and day-to-day administration was delegated to a handful of penlops who governed the main trade corridors from fortified dzongs.

The Trongsa governorship was created in 1647, when the Zhabdrung appointed Chogyal Minjur Tempa (also spelled Minjur Tenpa, 1613–1680) as the first penlop. Minjur Tempa had been sent east with a detachment of Drukpa soldiers to bring the Bumthang and Kheng valleys, and the eastern districts as far as the Tawang frontier, under the new state. He used Trongsa as his base and is credited with extending the Zhabdrung's authority over what contemporaries called the "eight eastern districts" — roughly modern Bumthang, Lhuentse, Mongar, Trashigang, Trashiyangtse, Pemagatshel, Samdrup Jongkhar and Zhemgang. Under his direction construction of Trongsa Dzong proper began on the site of an earlier temple founded in 1543 by Ngagi Wangchuk, the Zhabdrung's great-grandfather. Minjur Tempa also oversaw the building of the dzongs at Jakar, Lhuentse, Trashigang and Zhemgang, and later served as the third Druk Desi.

Because the eastern districts had no comparable centre of administration, the Trongsa Penlop effectively ruled them as subordinate territories, appointing dzongpens (fortress commanders) to the district dzongs and collecting taxes in kind. The office was in principle appointive and subject to confirmation by the Druk Desi and the Zhabdrung's regency, but in practice, as the central government weakened, it grew into a quasi-independent fief.

Jurisdiction and strategic geography

Trongsa Dzong stands on a ridge above the Mangde Chhu gorge at roughly 2,200 metres, commanding the only practicable east–west passage across Bhutan before the 20th-century motor road. Any traveller, merchant or army moving between the western valleys of Thimphu, Punakha and Paro and the eastern districts had to pass beneath its walls. Southward, the rivers flowing from Trongsa's jurisdiction reached the Assam and Bengal Duars — the fertile sub-montane strip where Bhutan levied tolls on the cloth, salt and pack-animal trade with British India.

This geography gave the Trongsa Penlop three advantages unmatched by any rival. He controlled the central corridor of the country, and could physically sever western Bhutan from the east. He drew tax and trade revenue from the eastern duars, which exceeded the income of the western provinces. And he commanded a manpower base in central and eastern Bhutan that no other penlop could match in the field.

By contrast, the Paro Penlop — the other pre-eminent governorship — controlled the western trade route to Tibet through the Chumbi Valley, the Punakha–Thimphu–Paro corridor and the Haa district. The 19th-century history of Bhutan is largely the story of the rivalry between these two offices.

The 19th-century rise

By the early 19th century the Druk Desi had become a ceremonial office, installed and unseated by whichever penlop or dzongpen commanded the most armed retainers at any given moment. Civil war between the Trongsa and Paro factions, with shifting alliances among the dzongpens of Punakha, Thimphu and Wangdue Phodrang, was chronic. British observers who reached the country in this period — notably Ashley Eden in 1863 — reported that central authority had effectively collapsed.

Jigme Namgyal

Jigme Namgyal (1825–1881), born at Pila Nagtshang in the Dungkar area of Kurtoe, entered the Trongsa administration around 1846 and rose through the ranks of its retinue. He was appointed the tenth Trongsa Penlop in 1853 and held the office until 1870, when he briefly relinquished it to become the 51st Druk Desi. For nearly three decades he was the decisive military and political figure in Bhutan.

Jigme Namgyal's reputation rests on his command during the Duar War of 1864–65, the only direct conflict between Bhutan and British India. The war followed the failure of the Eden mission and the unilateral British annexation of the Bengal and Assam Duars. In January 1865 a Bhutanese force under his command counter-attacked, recapturing Dewangiri, Bishensing, Buxa and Balla in rapid succession; at one point a force under his command, reportedly around 5,000 men, confronted and briefly held off a considerably larger British column at Chumurchi. The war ended in Bhutanese defeat, and on 11 November 1865 Jigme Namgyal signed the Treaty of Sinchula, ceding the duars permanently in exchange for an annual compensation of 50,000 rupees. The treaty preserved Bhutanese sovereignty but confirmed Jigme Namgyal's reputation inside the country as the man who had resisted the British and secured the fiscal settlement that followed.

He died at Simtokha Dzong in 1881, having already groomed his infant son to inherit the family's position in Trongsa.

Ugyen Wangchuck

Ugyen Wangchuck (1862–1926), Jigme Namgyal's son, succeeded as twelfth Trongsa Penlop in 1882. His accession was contested, and the first years of his tenure were consumed by a succession of small wars against the Punakha and Thimphu dzongpens and their Paro allies. The fighting culminated on 11 August 1885 at the Battle of Changlimithang, a plain just south of Thimphu where his central Bhutanese troops broke a rebel force backed by the western dzongpens. The battle ended the civil war and left Ugyen Wangchuck the unchallenged strongman of Bhutan, though he continued to govern nominally as Trongsa Penlop rather than as king.

Between 1885 and 1907 he gradually absorbed the other penlopships, in most cases by installing his own sons, nephews or clients; the previously independent Paro Penlop was reduced to a tributary. In 1903–04 he accepted an invitation from the Government of India to accompany the Younghusband Expedition to Lhasa as a mediator between the British and the Tibetan government. His conduct earned him a KCIE in 1905 and a settled British policy of dealing with him as the de facto ruler of Bhutan.

On 17 December 1907, at a ceremony in the courtyard of Punakha Dzong, Ugyen Wangchuck was enthroned as the first hereditary Druk Gyalpo. The document of election was signed and sealed by the monastic community, the civil officials and representatives of the people, and witnessed by the British political officer John Claude White. The dual system, nominally three centuries old, was formally ended. From that day onward the Trongsa Penlopship ceased to be a rival to the throne and became, instead, an attribute of it. 17 December is observed as the National Day of Bhutan.

The Trongsa Penlop under the monarchy

Under the Wangchuck dynasty the office was redefined as the hereditary title of the designated heir apparent. Each successive Crown Prince has been formally invested at Trongsa Dzong before his eventual coronation at Punakha, a pattern intended to link the modern throne with the 17th-century governorship and to signify that the holder has been trained to rule. Historians of Bhutanese institutions, including Karma Phuntsho and Sonam Kinga, have described the practice as a deliberate ritual bridge between the pre-1907 order and the monarchy.

The holders of the office since 1907 have been:

#	Holder	Invested	Subsequent reign
12	Ugyen Wangchuck	1882	1st Druk Gyalpo, 1907–1926
13	Jigme Wangchuck	1923	2nd Druk Gyalpo, 1926–1952
14	Jigme Dorji Wangchuck	1946	3rd Druk Gyalpo, 1952–1972
15	Jigme Singye Wangchuck	1972	4th Druk Gyalpo, 1972–2006
16	Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck	31 October 2004	5th Druk Gyalpo, 2006–present

The present Crown Prince, Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck, born on 5 February 2016, is the eldest son of the 5th King and Queen Jetsun Pema and is named after his great-great-great-grandfather, the tenth Trongsa Penlop. He has not yet been invested; by convention this would take place at Trongsa Dzong at a date set by the reigning monarch.

Trongsa Dzong and the Tower of Trongsa

The physical seat of the office, Trongsa Dzong, remains one of the largest fortress-monasteries in Bhutan. It houses an active monastic community and continues to be used for the investiture of the Crown Prince. Above the dzong stands Ta Dzong, the round watchtower built by Chogyal Minjur Tempa in the mid-17th century to guard the approach from the north. Ta Dzong was restored with Austrian government assistance and reopened on 10 December 2008 as the Tower of Trongsa — the Royal Heritage Museum, timed to coincide with the coronation of the 5th Druk Gyalpo and the centenary of the monarchy. Its collection of some 224 objects includes the first king's robes, the Raven Crown, and the swords attributed to Jigme Namgyal and the third king. The museum was conceived, in part, as a permanent monument to the Trongsa Penlopship itself.

Historiography

Modern scholarly treatment of the Trongsa Penlopship is dominated by a small number of works. Karma Phuntsho's The History of Bhutan (2013) provides the fullest narrative account in English, drawing on both Dzongkha chronicles and British archival material. The late Michael Aris's early studies, particularly Bhutan: The Early History of a Himalayan Kingdom (1979), remain the standard reference on the Zhabdrung period and the origins of the penlop system. John Ardussi has written extensively on the chhoesi framework, the Druk Desi office and the rise of the regional governors. Bhutanese scholars including Sonam Kinga, Dorji Penjore and Karma Ura have analysed the institution's transformation under the monarchy, while the Centre for Bhutan Studies has published chronicles and documents relating to Jigme Namgyal and Ugyen Wangchuck.

Sources diverge on several points of detail. The numbering of the early penlops differs slightly between chronicles, the founding date of Trongsa Dzong is given as either 1647 or 1648, and the exact duration of some 18th-century tenures is not established. The dates and ordering used in this article follow the compilation in the Wikipedia entry on the Penlop of Trongsa, which itself draws on Karma Phuntsho and the Bhutanese royal archives; readers consulting the scholarly literature should expect minor variations.

See also

• Trongsa Dzong
• Tower of Trongsa Museum
• Jigme Namgyal
• Ugyen Wangchuck
• Battle of Changlimithang
• Duar War
• Treaty of Sinchula
• Younghusband Expedition
• Wangchuck dynasty
• Druk Desi
• Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal
• Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
• Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck (Crown Prince)

References

1. Penlop of Trongsa — Wikipedia (compiled list of holders, dates and jurisdiction)
2. Jigme Namgyal — Wikipedia
3. Ugyen Wangchuck — Wikipedia
4. Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck — Wikipedia (investiture as 16th Trongsa Penlop, 31 October 2004)
5. Chogyal Minjur Tempa — Wikipedia
6. Trongsa Dzong — Wikipedia
7. The Royal Heritage Museum — Tower of Trongsa (official site)
8. Royal Heritage Museum — National Museum of Bhutan
9. "National Day: the Story of Bhutan" — Kuensel
10. Trongsa Penlop Jigme Namgyal — Heavenly Bhutan (biographical summary)
11. Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck (Crown Prince) — Wikipedia
12. Karma Phuntsho, The History of Bhutan (Random House India / Haus Publishing, 2013).
13. Michael Aris, Bhutan: The Early History of a Himalayan Kingdom (Aris & Phillips, 1979).