Introduction | 1 | Dāphā: Sacred Singing in a South Asian City | Richa

Small children released from school and with nothing to do in the evening chase each other around, but apart from the occasional tractor or motor-cycle passing through, nothing else disturbs the prevailing tranquillity. The dapha group, sitting on their wooden verandah at the top of the temple steps, have already played the obligatory introduction on drum and cymbals which announces their presence and invites the gods to listen to their singing, and are sitting quietly discussing what songs to sing and waiting for more members to join them. The songs sung by dapha singers form a repertoire that overlaps only partly with other styles of Newar devotional music, which are believed to have developed more recently. The Kathmandu Valley is an elevated plateau, some 4,500 feet in altitude, that nestles among the foothills of the Himalaya mountain chain, surrounded by a ring of mountains rising to 8,200 feet. The Licchavis were followed by an unstable succession of ruling clans.