Dhupa (धुप) is, in dharmic religions (such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc), the ritual offering of incense during puja to an image of a deity, or other object of veneration. It is also the Sanskrit word for incense or perfume itself.

Thai language also borrows this word from Sanskrit to call joss sticks or incense sticks, by omitting "a" in the word Dhupa. So, the word retains the Sanskrit form when it is written in Thai alphabet as "Dhup" (ธูป). However, Sanskrit's Dh ([d̪ʱ]) is pronounced as aspirated T [tʰ] in Thai, the word is normally pronounced or transliterated as "Thup" ([tʰûːp]).

The very idea of offering dhupa is personified in the dakini Dhupa, who is said in the Bardo Thödol to appear on the third day.

Sonu Nigam (born 30 July 1973 in Faridabad, Haryana, India) is an Indian singer whose songs have been featured in numerous Hindi and Kannada movies, as well as films in Tamil, Assamese, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi and Telugu. He has also released numerous Indi-pop albums and acted in a few Hindi movies. He had changed the spelling of his last name from 'Nigam' to 'Niigaam' in accordance with numerology, but later returned to the original spelling 'Nigam'.

Sonu Nigam began his singing career at the age of three, when he joined his father on stage to sing Mohammed Rafi's "Kya Hua Tera Vaada, Wo Kasam Wo Irada". From then on Sonu accompanied his father on his singing appearances at weddings and parties. In his teenage years he successfully participated in several music competitions. He moved to Mumbai with his father to begin his Bollywood singing career at the age of 19.

His initial years in Mumbai proved to be a struggle, beginning by singing covers of Mohammed Rafi songs, mainly for a number of Rafi Ki Yaadein albums released by T-Series. T-Series promoter Gulshan Kumar played a key role in identifying Nigam's talent by giving him a chance to reach a larger audience. These albums contributed to T-Series for some years although Nigam's singing style was regarded by some to be like that of a "Rafi clone". Nigam's first movie song as a playback singer was Janam (1990), which was never officially released. He also got a break in radio commercials until he appeared on the popular TV show Sa Re Ga Ma, after which there was no turning back. He was trained by classical singer Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan.

Anuradha Paudwal is a popular playback singer in Bollywood in India. She has sung songs in Hindi, Marathi, Oriya, and Nepali.

She studied at Xavier's College in Mumbai. She was married to the late Arun Paudwal, who worked with music director S. D. Burman as his assistant. Her singing career started in 1973 with the movie, Abhimaan, (starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan) in which she sang a Shloka (a Sanskrit verse). In the same year she also made her Marathi film debut with "Yashoda" (music by Datta Davjekar). In 1974, she brought out a record of Non-film Marathi songs or "bhav geeten" which became very popular.

In 1976, she got her break as a playback singer in Hindi films with Kalicharan (starring Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy). Her first solo was in the movie, Aap Beati, (starring Hema Malini and Shashi Kapoor). Laxmikant-Pyarelal were the music-composer duo for that movie. She also occasionally sang songs for composers Rajesh Roshan (Des Pardes), Jaidev (Dooriyan, Laila Majnu), Kalyanji Anandji (Kalaakar, Vidhaata), and Usha Khanna (Souten, Sajan Bina Suhagan).