The Fourth Zhamar, Chodrak Yeshe, was one of the most influential religious and political figures of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. At a time of intense political instability, he brokered peace between the Pakmodru, Rinpung, and Geluk factions of central Tibet, established Yangpachen Monastery, and preserved the heritage of the Karma Kagyu tradition.

Mase Tonpa Rinchen Zangpo was a fourteenth-century lama from eastern Tibet and one of the so called "Five Scholars of Minyak." He trained in multiple traditions in central Tibet before returning to Minyak where he taught and founded Rātī Monastery in the 1360s. He was posthumously given the title of the Second Gangkar Lama, a Karma-Kagyu incarnation line. Among his teachers were Dolpopa, Buton, and the Third and Fourth Karmapas.

Dratsepa Rinchen Namgyel was the chief disciple of Buton and his successor as abbot at Zhalu, serving from 1356 to his death in 1388. He served Buton as scribe and editor, collecting his teacher's writings in an edition of thirty-three volumes.

Tarpa Lotsāwa Nyima Gyeltsen is regarded as a pioneering translator of Sanskrit grammars and canonical scriptures, including the Guhyagarbha Tantra. He traveled to both Nepal and India and was a teacher to the famous fourteenth-century scholar Buton Rinchen Drub. He has fifty-four translations in the Tibetan canons.

Jamyang Sarma Sherab Wozer, commonly known as Jamyang Sarma or Jamsarwa, was a twelfth- to thirteenth-century scholar based in the Nyang region of Tsang. He was a disciple of Nyel Zhikpa Jampai Dorje, under whom he studied the teachings of Buddhist philosophy of his day, and of Semo Chewa Namkha Gyeltsen, who transmitted the Dro lineage of the Kālacakra. He established a monastic college at Kyangdur Monastery.