Newar Music: Dapha, Gunla Bajan, Dhime Baja & the Nau Baja

Newari music (also written Newa or Newar music) is the traditional classical, devotional and processional music developed by the Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley. It draws on both Hindu and Buddhist religious practice and blends courtly raga theory with the folk music of the Valley and its surrounding hills. In Newar tradition the deity Manjushree, credited in mythology with draining the Valley lake, is also honoured as a teacher of music, reflecting how deeply music is woven into Newar cosmology and ritual.

The music is organised around a devotional calendar. Specific ragas (melodic modes) and songs are assigned to particular seasons, festivals and even hours of the day, so that the same guthi will play different repertoire at Dashain, in the monsoon month of Gunla, or at a life-cycle rite. This seasonal raga system is one of the features that marks Newari music as a genuine classical tradition rather than only folk performance.

Much of the surviving repertoire is documented in old treatises. The Sangit Chandra (also cited as Sangit Chandra Grantha), associated with King Jagatjyoti Malla of Bhaktapur and his minister Vanshamani Ojha, records song, dance and drama in Sanskrit with explanations in Nepal Bhasa (Newari), showing that Valley musicians engaged directly with pan-Indian classical theory while keeping their own language and deities at the centre.

Dapha (dāphā) is the best known form of Newar classical devotional music. It consists of hymns sung in a call-and-response style and set to classical ragas and taal (rhythmic cycles). The tradition is generally traced to the late Lichhavi period and flourished under the Malla kings, with the surviving devotional-song form usually dated to about the 17th century and expanding with royal patronage into the 18th century. This makes Dapha among the oldest continuously performed devotional music in Nepal.

Dapha is sung by a community group called a Dapha Khalah, organised as a guthi (a traditional Newar trust). Performances take place at a dabu, a raised open-air platform found beside temples and in neighbourhood squares. Singers typically sit facing each other in two rows and trade verses, while drummers and cymbal players keep the taal. Historically the practice was governed by strict rules and, in most Dapha traditions, women were excluded from the singing groups.

A Dapha session follows a fixed liturgical sequence, opening with an invocation to the deity (dyah lhaaye), moving through the main hymns and closing with the arati lamp offering. The instruments include drums such as the khin and the larger lali-khin family, cymbals (taa and bhusya) and, in fuller ensembles, flutes. Because each guthi guards its own songbook and playing style, Dapha survives as a genuinely local, place-specific art across Kathmandu, Patan (Lalitpur), Bhaktapur and smaller Valley towns.

Gunla Bajan is Buddhist devotional and processional music played during Gunla, the tenth month of the Nepal Sambat lunar calendar, which falls around August in the Gregorian calendar. Gunla is a holy month for the Newar Buddhist community, echoing the ancient rains-retreat (varsavasa) when the Buddha's monks stayed in one place to study and teach the Dharma. Through the month, devotees rise before dawn, recite scriptures and walk in procession to shrines, above all the Swayambhu stupa on the western hill of Kathmandu, playing music as an act of merit.

'Bajan' means both the music and the group that plays it. Gunla bands are organised as guthis or khalas based on locality or caste, with hereditary membership; the same societies run the lessons, maintain the instruments, and host the associated festivals and feasts. Key days in the month include Bahidyah Swahwanegu, when families display Dipankara Buddha images and paubha scroll paintings in their courtyards, and Nisala Chhawanegu, when offerings are carried to Swayambhu. Gunla bands also lead the processions on Nepal Sambat New Year's Day.

The heart of Gunla music is the Dhaa (dhah), a large double-headed drum long regarded as one of the oldest instruments in the Valley and, by tradition, played there for around two thousand years. It is struck with a short stick on one side and with the open hand on the other. Around it play trumpets and long horns (payentah), shawms, small cymbals (taa), large cymbals (bhusya), the small naykhin drum and chhusya cymbals, producing the deep, marching sound that fills Valley streets each monsoon.

The dhime, more precisely dhimay, is the large barrel drum that has become the everyday emblem of Newar street music. It is built from a hollowed cylindrical tree trunk (or, in some modern examples, metal) with a goat-skin head at each end. Instruments vary widely in size, with diameters commonly cited from roughly 40 to 51 inches and lengths of about 17 to 21 inches, giving the drum its powerful, resonant voice.

The two heads are played differently. The left head, the Mankhah, is struck by hand, producing either a long ringing tone or a sharp downward slap. The right head, the Nasah, is beaten with a thin cane stick curved at the tip. The drum is played almost exclusively as an ensemble instrument called dhimaybaja, in which several dhime are accompanied by paired cymbals, chiefly the large bhusya, along with smaller cymbals such as sichhya and, sometimes, a gong-like tainai.

The dhime is closely tied to the Jyapu, the Newar farming community, to the point that the drum is treated as a cultural synonym for the Jyapu themselves. Dhimay ensembles lead the great Valley festivals, most visibly the chariot procession and masked dances of Indra Jatra in Kathmandu and the cow processions of Gai Jatra (Gun Punhi). Because it is loud, portable and learned young, the dhime has spread far beyond ritual use and is now the most widely recognised sound of Newar identity.

Nau Baja (literally 'nine instruments'), also linked to the navabaja and navadapha traditions of Bhaktapur, is a formal repertoire built on a set of nine sacred drums played on major religious occasions. It should not be confused with the Naumati Baja of the wider Nepali hill tradition, which is a different nine-piece band of shawms and kettledrums used at weddings. The Newar Nau Baja is a temple and guthi tradition demanding long apprenticeship, and a full performance can run for roughly one to one and a half hours, moving through offerings and lamp rituals.

The ensemble is usually described in three groups. The nine principal drums (the tha baja) are commonly listed as dhaa, kwota, pachima, dhancha, dhime, dholak, kokhin, nyakhin and nagara, though local lineages vary the exact set. A second group of supporting percussion and cymbals (dhatu baja) adds texture, including instruments such as sichhya, khwolimali and the taa cymbal. A third group of wind instruments (fwu baja) carries the melody, among them the ponga (a long horn) and the muhali shawm.

Navadapha, found especially in Bhaktapur, joins the Dapha singing tradition to this extra set of nine navabaja drums, often accompanied by Jugi (Kapali) shawm players. Because each drum has its own name, role and associated deity, Nau Baja represents the most complex and prestigious layer of Newar instrumental music, and the one most dependent on unbroken guthi transmission for its survival.

Every strand of Newari music depends on the guthi, the hereditary community trust that owns the instruments, funds the festivals and, above all, teaches the repertoire. Membership traditionally passes down family and caste lines, and learning was almost entirely oral: pupils followed the teacher's hands and voice, with no written notation. This kept the music authentic to each locality but also made it fragile, since a single broken generation could end a lineage's songs.

That fragility became acute in the 1970s, when many young Newars turned away from what they saw as old-fashioned obligations and participation in music guthis fell sharply. From the early 2000s, however, several khalas began a deliberate revival, introducing written notation and history lessons alongside oral practice and, significantly, admitting women to Gunla and other ensembles for the first time, which brought new energy and commitment to preservation.

Named groups active in this revival include the Asan Baja Guthi, the Tamrakar Gunla Baajan Khala and the Kohiti Gunla Baja Khala, among many neighbourhood societies across the Valley. Institutions such as the Music Museum of Nepal and heritage bodies working in the Valley have documented and displayed these instruments, helping researchers, heritage tourists and the Newar community itself keep Dapha, Gunla Bajan, dhime baja and Nau Baja alive as living heritage rather than museum relics.