Prof R Mahalakshmi of Centre for Historical Studies, JNU is presenting and hosting a short lecture demonstration on the Khayal by Vidushi Madhumita Ray. The programme is curated and researched by Heather House LLP. The course is free of cost with the option of appearing in an examination to obtain a certificate. The certificate can serve as a letter of recommendation for students and add to the credentials of extracurricular activities.

The format of the demonstration is in the form of questions and answers so that the participants can grasp the context of khayal, and their focus may be veered towards the underlying history and the many political contestations around music in the medieval period. The khayal was invented in the 12^th century by Amir Khusrau though it was not before 1498 or 1503, when it obtained its name from the text written by Qutban, the exiled court musician of the exiled Sultan of Jaunpur, Hussain Sharqui. Scholars have been confused over whether the khayal really existed in the 12^th century since the texts mention the term only later. Yet, the two most important elements of the khayal, the qawwal and the tarana were many creations of Amir Khusrau, often spoken of as the Da Vinci of India, but better to think of him as the Tagore of the 12^th century.

Khayal is often thought to have derived from the Sanskrit root of keli, or sex play perhaps to maintain the erotica that the genre often produces; or it has sometimes been assigned to the Arab word, khayal meaning imagination, both satisfy some of the musical appeal of the genre. Given that it started in the 12^th century from the qawwal singing, khayal may well be the distortion of the guttural “k”. The classical music that existed before the Muslim conquest was the dhrupad, sung in temples or by musicians as prayers. Sanskrit, Hindavi, and Persian texts have carefully documented the Hindu form of classical music in pre-Muslim days. The khayal came in with the Muslim conquest.

Amir Khusrau was a Persian and was the court musician, poet, philosopher, advisor of Alauddin Khilji, the latter being a Pathan. But because Persia was high culture, Turks, Arabs, Mongols and Pathans courted them to become their “Brahmins”. Khusrau sang the qawwali for Nizamuddin Auliya, the moral emperor of Islam and the taranna for Khilji, the sword wielding emperor of India. Together with the qawwal and taranna emerged the compositions of Khusrau. It was not yet called as the khayal. Khayal got its name much later in the Sultanate of Jaunpur of Hussain Shah Sharqui in 1503. The Mughals, notwithstanding the brief interlude of Sher Shah had pushed the Sultanate off limits and started towards building their own empire around Delhi. Qutban, the court musician of Jaunpur along with the Sultan in exile, documented, stamped and branded the khayal. Akbar banished khayal as being a vestige of the Sultanate and keeping in line with his sentiments, established the dhrupad, the pre-Islamic, Hindu music as central to the Mughal aesthetics.

The conflict between the khayal and the dhrupad may well be read as a contest between the Mughal and the Sultanate. As the Sultan started to lose political power, they romped back with their aural spectacle, music in the form of the khayal. As Sharqui was sharved eastwards, there emerged the Ganga Jamuna culture known as the Purbang. Hindus wrote in Persian, Persians wrote in Sanskrit and as Prof D.P Mukherjee, father of Indian sociology writes that at least in music there was no Hindustan and Pakistan. But there was a clear contestation between the dhrupad and khayal masking the competition between the Mughal and the Sultanate for legitimacy.

Out of favour from the Mughal court, khayal practioners and patrons heavily and speedily documented the genre. The documentation was also important because khayal was absorbing many genres along its course. Sharqui’s court used the chutkula into khayal; chutkula being couplets of poetry which breathed some performative aspects into the form. Documentation, diversity and loss of political power seem to be connected features.

As the film, Baiju Bawra shows clearly that musicians from the society at large were looking to some form of presence in the Mughal court, where the Ain-i-Akbari is clear the form of dhrupad was being perfected. Later Mughals from Shah Jahan opened the borders of dhrupad, and we see elements of bhajans coming in. Khayal was now becoming even more performative, promoting kathak widely in the princely domains.

Aurangzeb’s court musician Kushal Kant Kalawant and his disciples, Ras Baras Khan and later Niamat Ali Khan, or Sadarang brought the two styles close to each other and khayal adopted the dhrupadi alaap as part of its core identity.

As the Mughal court declined as did many of the princely powers of leading noblemen, power moving to Maratha princes, Ranjit Singh in Punjab and important zamindar “rajahs” in Bengal, gharana became the dominant feature. Gharana, literally means the house, house being that of the leading musician or a set of musicians. Gharanas were of guru shishya tradition, where music teaching became teacher to student under strict supervision. Due to the rise of the zamindars, we find a “market” for music, secrecy develops, networks and nepotism prevail and documentation declines.