Khatsun Namkha Lekpa Gyaltsen

Khatsun Namkha Lekpa Gyaltsen (1305 - 1343), orthographic spelling mK'as btsun nam mk'a legs pa'i rgyal mts'an, was a ruler of Sakya, which had a precedence position in Tibet under the Yuan dynasty. He reigned from 1325 to 1341, but was more prominent in religious than in worldly affairs, and his time saw the beginning of the decline of the Sakya hegemony in Tibet.

Khatsun Namkha Lekpa Gyaltsen was one of the thirteen sons of the previous abbot-ruler (dansa chenpo) of Sakya, Zangpo Pal. His mother was Macig Yon Dagmo. Shortly before the death of his father, his elder brother, the imperial preceptor Kunga Lotro Gyaltsen, made a division of his brothers into four branches who resided in four different palaces: Zhitog, Lhakhang, Rinchengang, and Ducho. Zangpo Pal died in 1323, and Khatsun, being the head of the Zhitog branch, was installed as upper ruler in 1325. The Yuan emperor Yesün Temür bestowed a seal and the title guanding guoshi. Although he enjoyed considerable religious prestige, Khatsun's actual authority appears to have been quite limited. He is seldom mentioned in the chronicles. Yesün Temür tried to strengthen the position of Sakya by appointing his brother Sonam Zangpo as viceroy of the three cholka (regions) of Tibet: Kham, Amdo and Ü-Tsang. This, however, did not turn out to be particularly effective. A series of administrators (ponchen) handled the affairs of Tibet, although with varying success. During the tenure of Khatsun they were:

During the tenure of Khatsun Namkha Lekpa Gyaltsen, Tibet may have been threatened by a military expedition dispatched by Muhammad ibn Tughluq, sultan of Delhi. According to the historian Firishta, "having heard of the great wealth of China, Muhammad Tughluq conceived the idea of subduing that empire; but in order to accomplish his design, it was necessary first to conquer the country of Himachal which lies between the borders of China and India." Himachal refers to Nepal and the lands on both sides of the Himalayas. The near-contemporary historian Ziauddin Barani, on the other side, states that the sultan strove to conquer the mountain of Kara-jal between Hind and China. Despite the warnings of his councilors, Muhammad ibn Tughluq sent a sizable army up to the north in 1337. Firishta relates that the Indians, greatly diminished by hardships, met a large Chinese army at the border and had to fall back, closely followed by the Chinese. On the retreat downhill the sultan's troops suffered terribly from heavy rains and attacks by mountain tribes. Just a few soldiers returned to Delhi, only to be executed by the enraged sultan. Modern historians, however, doubt that Muhammad ibn Tughluq actually entertained the fantastic plan to conquer Tibet and China, and believe that the expedition may have aimed at tribal groups in the far north, towards the border to Tibet.

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