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Druk tsendhen (The Thunder Dragon Kingdom) is the national anthem of Bhutan.

Adopted in 1953, the music is by Aku Tongmi and the words are by Dasho Gyaldun Thinley. Tongmi was educated in India and was recently appointed leader of the military brass band when the need for an anthem rose at the occasion of a state visit from prime minister Nehru of India. His original score was inspired by the Indian and British anthems, as well as the bhutanese folk tune Thri nyampa med pa pemai thri (The Unchanging Lotus Throne). The melody has twice undergone changes by Mr Tongmi's successors as band leaders.

The original lyrics were 12 lines, but was shortened to the present 6 lines version in 1964 by a secretary to the king. Both versions are quoted in the book at link #1.

As the anthem is inspired by a folk tune, there is a choreography to it as well, originally directed by Mr. Tongmi.

Contents 1 Bhutanese lyrics 2 Transliteration of Bhutanese lyrics 3 English translation 4 External links

འབྲུག་ཙན་དན་བཀོད་པའི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ནང་།།
དཔལ་ལུགས་གཉིས་བསྟན་སྲིད་སྐྱོང་བའི་མགོན་།།
འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་པོ་མངའ་བདག་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་།།
སྐུ་འགྱུར་མེད་བརྟན་ཅིང་ཆབ་སྲིད་འཕེལ་།།
ཆོས་སངས་རྒྱས་བསྟན་པ་དར་ཞིང་རྒྱས་།།
འབངས་བདེ་སྐྱིད་ཉི་མ་ཤར་བར་ཤོག་།།

Druk tsenden koipi gyelkhap na
Pel loog nig tensi chongwai gyon
Druk ngadhak gyelpo rinpoche
Ku jurmey tenching chhap tsid pel
Chho sangye tenpa darshing gyel
Bang deykyed nyima shar warr sho.

In the Thunder Dragon Kingdom, where cypresses grow
Refuge of the glorious monastic and civil traditions,
The King of Druk, precious sovereign,
His being is eternal, his reign prosperous
The enlightenment teachings thrive and flourish
May the people shine like the sun of peace and happiness!

• The Origin and Description of the National Flag and Anthem of the Kingdom of Bhutan pdf book, 43 pages
• National anthems.net midi file
• Dookola Swiata - This travel website has an instrumental version of the Anthem, as an .asx file.
• Children sing the anthem - This website has a sound file of Bhutanese children singing the Anthem without musical accompaniment. Part of Mitsuaki Kobayahi's website about his two year term teaching mathematics in Bhutan.