This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Hindustani music in the time of Aurangzeb Schofield, Katherine Ruth Awarding institution: SOAS University of London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 28. Sep. 2021 Hindustani music in the time of Aurangzeb Katherine Ruth Butler BROWN Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London SEPTEMBER 2003 2 ABSTRACT The long reign of the last Great Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb (r.1658-1707), is highly controversial in Indian history. An orthodox Muslim, Aurangzeb is infamous for his bigoted and oppressive political and cultural policies. Scholars have long argued that he banned music throughout his reign, leaving a crucial period in Indian music history unexamined. This thesis investigates North Indian musical life in the time of Aurangzeb, through a critical analysis of musical discourse in contemporary Persian language sources. These demonstrate that far from having banned music, musical practice thrived under Aurangzeb. My thesis aims 1) to refute the story of the ban and demonstrate that music played an integral role in Mughal society throughout Aurangzeb’s reign; 2) to establish an epistemology of Indo-Persian musical treatises that enables these overlooked sources to be studied in their intellectual and cultural contexts; and 3) to explore two major developments in Hindustani music at this time. Chapter One sets out the historical context of the thesis, and introduces its main themes. In Chapter Two I present a critical epistemology of Indo-Persian musical treatises in the Mughal period. I assess the textual evidence for Aurangzeb’s attitudes towards music in Chapter Three, refuting the idea that he banned it. Chapter Four looks at elite patronage of music in Aurangzeb’s reign, focussing on the nature and purpose of music, masculinity and princely etiquette, and the meh8fil. Chapter Five explores two complementary systems used to classify ra#ga at the Mughal court – the ra#ga-ra#ginı‹ system, and two t8ha#t8 systems grounded in the treatises of Kamilkhani and Ahobala. In Chapter Six I unveil a new theory on the origin and development of khaya#l, arguing that it originally emerged in a particular Sufi context, and first rose to prominence at the court of Aurangzeb. Finally, in Chapter Seven I conclude with a summary of musical developments in the time of Aurangzeb, and how they shed new light on his reign. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract......................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements....................................................................................................4 Notes on transliteration..............................................................................................7 Notes on translation................................................................................................... 10 Chronology of events.................................................................................................11 Map of Mughal empire.............................................................................................. 13 Chapter One: Introduction............................................................................. 14 Chapter Two: Indo-Persian musical treatises under the Mughals................. 27 Chapter Three: Did Aurangzeb ban music?...................................................81 Chapter Four: Music, masculinity, and the Mughal mehfil8 ........................... 118 Chapter Five: Ra#ga systems in performance................................................. 177 Chapter Six: The origins and development of khaya#l....................................226 Chapter Seven: Conclusion............................................................................269 Bibliography.............................................................................................................. 279 Appendix One............................................................................................................ 295 4 To my usta#ds, my patient mentors my hamra#h, my inspiration I have become you, and you me; I have become the body, you the soul; So that none hereafter may say that “I am someone and you someone else.” Khusrau a beggar, a stranger has come wandering to your town; For the sake of god, have pity on this beggar and do not turn him away from your door ~ Amir Khusrau ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As with all scholarly endeavours, the completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the generous assistance of a large number of people and institutions. Firstly, I wish to acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), who were primarily responsible for funding this research through their Postgraduate Award Scheme, which included an additional grant for research in India. I am also grateful to the SOAS Scholarships’ Committee for providing me with a SOAS Fieldwork Award. Of all the scholars who assisted me with my research, I wish to thank first and foremost my supervisor Richard Widdess. I could not have had a better guide through the academic minefield that constitutes doctoral research. His sincere enthusiasm for and interest in my project helped sustain my own energy levels throughout, and his criticisms and wisdom were invaluable in making this thesis a much better product. I am especially grateful to all the libraries in India and the UK who gave me permission to consult their collections of Indo-Persian manuscripts. In particular I wish to acknowledge the assistance of HH Nawab Kazim Ali Khan of Rampur, who facilitated my entry into the Raza Library. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the directors and staff 5 of the following libraries for their helpfulness, who are unfortunately too many to list individually: Dr Zakir Hussain Library, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi; Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University; Raza Library, Rampur; Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna; Patna Museum Library; Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kolkata; Indian National Library, Kolkata; Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, University of Madras; Salar Jung Musuem Library, Hyderabad; Andhra Pradesh Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Hyderabad; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Edinburgh University Library; the British Library, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and Cambridge University Library. To the individual scholars who kindly advised me at various stages of my research – Thank you! (in no particular order): Inayet and Sunita Zaidi, Madhu Trivedi, Radhika Chopra, Muzaffar Alam, Satish Chandra, Irfan Habib, Shireen Moosvi, W H Siddiqi, Ritwik Sanyal, Dr and Mrs Habibur Rahman Chighani, N Ramanathan, Syeda Asfia Kauser, Avril Powell, David Arnold, Rupert Snell, Rosalind O’Hanlon, Christopher Bayly, Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Shailaja Fennell, Francesca Orsini, Jeevan Deol, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Francis Robinson, Nick Barnard, Ursula Sims-Williams, Sunil Sharma, and Jim Kippen. I am also indebted to my Persian and Sanskrit teachers at SOAS, Ms Farzad, Dr Vajdi, Professor Yahaghi, and Ann Glazier, and the Music Department faculty and staff. Special thanks need to go to Gage Averill, Aditya Behl, Joep Bor, Joanna Butler, Harold Powers, and Owen Wright, all of whom read and commented on various drafts of my thesis; and particularly to Françoise “Nalini” Delvoye. Their critical interest in my work challenged and inspired my thinking, and their encouragement was indispensable. On a personal level, I wish to remember the friends I made in India whose hospitality and kindness can never be repaid: Dr and Mrs Abdul Khalique in Aligarh, in Rampur Jaffar Ali Khan, Sanam and Swaleh, in Patna Paul Jackson and the Mashhadi family, Vijayan and Premila Pavamani and all our friends at EMC, Kolkata, the Gilberts and the staff of Hebron School in Ooty, Sridevi, Pandiri Krishna Mohan and Sitaram Reddy in Chennai, and Clare Anderson of the University of Leicester for an enjoyable last five days in India. I have been particularly honoured over the past four years to study khaya#l with Ustad Wajahat Khan in London. I am most grateful to him and his family, especially his father the great Ustad Imrat Khan Sahib, for entrusting me with their 6 musical and