Did Aurangzeb Ban Music

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Modern Asian Studies 41, 1 (2007) pp. 77120. C 2007 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0026749X05002313 Printed in the United Kingdom Did Aurangzeb Ban Music? Questions for the Historiography of his Reign 1 KATHERINE BUTLER BROWN Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University Bury [music] so deep under the earth that no sound or echo of it may rise again. - Attributed to Aurangzeb 2 There is no safer way to blacken a person’s reputation in the estimate of following generations than to attribute a wanton holocaust of wasted beauty to him. - Antonia Fraser on Oliver Cromwell 3 Introduction It was towards the end of my research in India in 2001 that news began to filter in of the Taliban’s determination to obliterate the two ancient statues of the Buddha carved into the cliffs above Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The international condemnation that ensued was immediate, enormous, and surprisingly unified, including an attempt at intervention by leading Islamic jurists from al-Azhar University in Cairo. 4 In defiance of world opinion, the Taliban destroyed the statues in unswerving obedience to their narrow definition of the shari‘a law. Virtually overnight the Bamiyan Buddhas 1 This research was generously funded by a Postgraduate Award from the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). I am particularly grateful to Richard Widdess, Avril Powell, Jonathan Katz, and Gage Averill for their penetrating comments on this work at an earlier stage of its gestation; see Brown, “Hindustani music in the time of Aurangzeb” (2003), pp. 81117. 2 As reported by ‘Ma’muri’ in Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. 245. 3 Fraser, Cromwell (1973), p. 102. 4 ‘Clerics fume at Taliban’s idea of Islam,’ Times of India, 19/03/2001. 0026749X/07/$7.50+$0.10 77

Transcript of Did Aurangzeb Ban Music

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Modern Asian Studies 41, 1 (2007) pp. 77–120. C© 2007 Cambridge University Pressdoi:10.1017/S0026749X05002313 Printed in the United Kingdom

Did Aurangzeb Ban Music? Questions for theHistoriography of his Reign1

KATHERINE BUTLER BROWN

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University

Bury [music] so deep under the earth that no sound or echo of it may riseagain.

- Attributed to Aurangzeb2

There is no safer way to blacken a person’s reputation in the estimate offollowing generations than to attribute a wanton holocaust of wasted beautyto him.

- Antonia Fraser on Oliver Cromwell3

Introduction

It was towards the end of my research in India in 2001 that newsbegan to filter in of the Taliban’s determination to obliterate thetwo ancient statues of the Buddha carved into the cliffs aboveBamiyan, Afghanistan. The international condemnation that ensuedwas immediate, enormous, and surprisingly unified, including anattempt at intervention by leading Islamic jurists from al-AzharUniversity in Cairo.4 In defiance of world opinion, the Talibandestroyed the statues in unswerving obedience to their narrowdefinition of the shari‘a law. Virtually overnight the Bamiyan Buddhas

1 This research was generously funded by a Postgraduate Award from the UnitedKingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). I am particularly gratefulto Richard Widdess, Avril Powell, Jonathan Katz, and Gage Averill for theirpenetrating comments on this work at an earlier stage of its gestation; see Brown,“Hindustani music in the time of Aurangzeb” (2003), pp. 81–117.

2 As reported by ‘Ma’muri’ in Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. 245.3 Fraser, Cromwell (1973), p. 102.4 ‘Clerics fume at Taliban’s idea of Islam,’ Times of India, 19/03/2001.

0026–749X/07/$7.50+$0.10

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became a powerful exemplar of the vulnerability of cultural heritageto hostile religious ideology empowered by the state. At the time Ithought it somewhat ironic that a world so unmoved by the plight ofthousands of Afghan refugees streaming into Pakistan to escape theworst famine in years could become so impassioned about the fateof two carved stones, however irreplaceable. But the reasons werebigger than that, more visceral; emotional and symbolic. Reading theworld’s liberal media, it was as if the soul of humanity, embodied inits cultural expressions, had been permanently violated by an almostincomprehensible act of vandalism.

What intrigued me about the reaction of the Indian press andpolitical bodies was how closely this event in Afghanistan seemed tiedup with issues of Indian national identity.5 The Indian governmentoffered to take the statues, the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid in Delhideclared that their destruction was in revenge for the demolition of theBabri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992, and Hindu nationalist organisationslike the Bajrang Dal threatened to blow up the shrine of SheikhMoinuddin Chishti in Ajmer in retaliation.6 Most interesting from myperspective were the parallels that were consistently drawn betweenthe actions of the Taliban and the last Great Mughal emperor of India,Aurangzeb (r.1658–1707).7 It was repeatedly stated in the Indianand international media that the last person who had tried to destroythe statues was Aurangzeb, despite the fact that such an assertion iswithout historical foundation.8 The very name of Aurangzeb seemsto act in the popular imagination as a signifier of politico-religiousbigotry and repression, regardless of historical accuracy.

Aurangzeb’s lengthy reign was a pivotal period in Indian history.Only ninety years separated the coronations of his father Shah Jahan(r.1628–58) and his great-grandson Muhammad Shah (r.1719–48),but in that time vast changes occurred in the political landscape ofIndia—changes that were to have important consequences for cultural

5 Maps of India drawn up by the Hindu nationalist group the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh (RSS) include Afghanistan as part of Akhand Bharat, or ‘unifiedIndia’, the eventual reunification of which is part of their ideological agenda.

6 ‘Shahi Imam makes new offer on Bamiyan Buddhas,’ Times of India, 08/03/2001;‘Bajrang Dal warns of backlash to Taliban action,’ Times of India, 05/03/2001.

7 e.g. ‘Talibans are only the latest in the line,’ Times of India, 04/03/2001.8 e.g. ‘I feel a great personal loss,’ Time Asia, 29/06/2001; Habib et al., 14/03/2001

(statement by the Aligarh Historians’ Society to the internet forum South Asia SocialChange Circuit, signed by Irfan Habib, Shireen Moosvi, Iqtidar Alam Khan and SatishChandra).

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history. During his reign, Aurangzeb pushed the Mughal empire to itsgreatest extent, only for it to enter a period of ‘crisis’ immediatelyafter his death. Between the years 1707 and 1719, a string of weakemperors, wars of succession, and coups by noblemen heralded theirrevocable weakening of Mughal power. In 1739, a mere thirty yearsafter Aurangzeb’s death, the Persian army under Nadir Shah occupiedand plundered Delhi, the temporal and spiritual seat of Mughal power,forcing the once almighty Mughal emperor to pay tribute to a foreigninvader. Recent analyses have pointed out that the disintegration ofcentralised power in eighteenth-century India was far from beingthe ‘disaster for Indian society’ many earlier historians portrayed.9

Nonetheless, it is undoubtedly the case that between 1707 and 1748,the Mughal centre lost much of its real power, and that this was asource of distress amongst the old ruling elites and of social upheavalmore generally.10 The causes of these eighteenth-century social andpolitical changes were complex, and have been the subject of fiercescholarly debate in recent years. However, most historians argue thatthe roots of Mughal decline lie in Aurangzeb’s reign. Scholars haveargued this repeatedly in the case of music and culture.11 Aurangzeb isrenowned in Indian history for his orthodox Islamic politico-religiousideology, which allegedly led to the widespread repression of manyIndian religious and cultural expressions throughout his reign. Onetheory for the decline of empire—now fairly old-fashioned but stillpredominant in popular histories—suggests that it was this culturaland religious oppression that precipitated a series of rebellions againsthis rule, which eventually led to the collapse of the empire.

It is in this area that the questions raised by the Taliban’s culturalpolicies in Afghanistan become relevant to a study of music andthe Mughal state under Aurangzeb. For the theory of widespreadcultural and religious oppression under Aurangzeb in part restson a famous incident in Indian music history: the potent story ofAurangzeb’s ‘burial’ of music in 1668–9. Although it attracted lessinternational anguish than the Taliban’s destruction of the BamiyanBuddhas, it was almost certainly of more significance to the lives ofordinary Afghans that the Taliban also banned music. This actionaccording to John Baily, not only threatened the survival of the ‘rich

9 Alam and Subrahmanyam, Mughal state (1998), p. 70.10 Alam, Crisis of empire (1986), p. 9.11 e.g. Sarkar, ‘The condition of the people’ (1998), pp. 312–13; Richards, Mughal

empire (1993), p. 173.

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Afghan musical heritage,’ but had ‘deep and wide-ranging [effects]for the Afghan people’.12 The Taliban’s violent renunciations of thecorrupting influences of music—the disembowelment of audio andvideo cassettes, the threats and beatings meted out to patrons andmusicians, the burning and smashing of musical instruments13—are strikingly reminiscent of Niccolao Manucci’s description ofAurangzeb’s ban on music in 1668–9:

Not resting content with the above orders [prohibiting alcohol, drugs, longbeards, etc.], Aurangzeb. . .ordered the same official [the muhtasib14] to stopmusic. If in any house or elsewhere he heard the sound of singing andinstruments, he should forthwith hasten there and arrest as many as he could,breaking the instruments. Thus was caused a great destruction of musicalinstruments. Finding themselves in this difficulty, their large earnings likelyto cease, without there being any other mode of seeking a livelihood, themusicians took counsel together and tried to appease the king in the followingway: About one thousand of them assembled on a Friday when Aurangzebwas going to the mosque. They came out with over twenty highly-ornamentedbiers, as is the custom of the country, crying aloud with great grief and manysigns of feeling, as if they were escorting to the grave some distinguisheddefunct. From afar Aurangzeb saw this multitude and heard their greatweeping and lamentation, and, wondering, sent to know the cause of so muchsorrow. The musicians redoubled their outcry and their tears, fancying theking would take compassion upon them. Lamenting, they replied with sobsthat the king’s orders had killed Music, therefore they were bearing her tothe grave. Report was made to the king, who quite calmly remarked thatthey should pray for the soul of Music, and see that she was thoroughly wellburied. In spite of this, the nobles did not cease to listen to songs in secret.This strictness was enforced in the principal cities.15

What happens to a musical culture and the people involved in itwhen music is banned? And how do the effects and the success orfailure of such a ban act as a cultural barometer of the nature ofthe state in relation to its subjects? Discussions of the effects ofAurangzeb’s policies on the history of music are often uncannilysimilar16 because of an overwhelming reliance on just two near-contemporary sources, Manucci’s Storia do Mogor (begun 1699) and

12 Baily, ‘Can you stop the birds singing?’ (2001), p. 8.13 Ibid., pp. 36–9.14 Official in charge of enforcing the shari’a.15 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii p. 8.16 For example, compare Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993), pp. 76–9 and Wade, Imaging

sound (1998), pp. 185–7.

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Khafi Khan’s Muntakhab al-Lubab (begun 1718).17 Largely reflectingManucci’s perspective, the majority of historians and musicologistsregard Aurangzeb’s ban as both the ‘last word’ on music during hisfifty year reign, and as a potent indicator of the repressive nature ofhis regime.18 It is generally inferred from these two accounts thatthe ban was total and uncompromisingly enforced for the rest ofhis reign.19 A straightforward reading of Manucci’s account certainlygives such an impression. One consequence of the ban is particularlyemphasised here: the threat to the survival of the musical tradition,made more acute by the musicians’ economic ruin. As Baily points out,any hiatus that is forced on an oral system of transmission quickly leadsto losses in that tradition. Other consequences are hinted at, such asthe emotional and spiritual costs to a society that believed that ‘musicis food for the soul,’ as the Chishti Sufis of Afghanistan still teach.20

If Aurangzeb’s ban was as extreme as Manucci suggests, it wouldtherefore have wrought enormous and possibly catastrophic changesto all aspects of musical life. Most secondary discussions of musicin Aurangzeb’s reign extend no further than the ban, showing thathistorians and musicologists generally assume that musical activitywas at best curtailed, and development prevented, from 1668–9 untilthe emperor’s death in 1707.21

However, there are several problems with this reading of theburial of music. It is particularly difficult to reconcile Manucci andKhafi Khan’s constructions of the story with conflicting evidencefound elsewhere, both internally and in the vast majority of othercontemporary sources. These discrepancies have proved impossibleto synthesise convincingly in the secondary literature. It needs tobe remembered that Manucci and Khafi Khan were not at allinterested in writing the history of music in Aurangzeb’s reign. Bothauthors are primarily concerned with political history, and musicalinformation is placed entirely at the service of the main themes of theirnarratives. This renders straightforward readings of their musical

17 e.g. Richards, Mughal empire (1993), p. 173; Wade, Imaging sound (1998),pp. 185–7; Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993), pp. 76–9; Ahmad, Hindustani music (1984),pp. 3–7; Bor, ‘The voice of the sarangi’ (1986/7), p. 84; and S. N. H. Rizvi, ‘Music inMuslim India’ (1941), pp. 337–8.

18 e.g. Richards, Mughal empire (1993), pp. 171–5.19 e.g. Wade, Imaging sound (1998), p. 187.20 Qazi Hasan, Miftah al-Sarud SJ, f. 2b; Baily, ‘Can you stop the birds singing?’

(2001), pp. 22, 47.21 e.g. Wade, Imaging sound (1998), p. 187; S. N. H. Rizvi, ‘Music in Muslim India’

(1941), pp. 337–8; Veer, Music of India (1986), p. 133.

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stories valueless without a consideration of the writers’ motivations,and the ends to which they directed their plot devices and rhetoric.In assessing the truth of the story of the ban, we firstly need toconfront the nature of all ‘true stories’, whether located in historicaldocuments, or reinscribed in contemporary discourse. All historicalnarratives claim to tell the truth about the past. At the same time,the narrative form is constructive of the past, creatively presentingselected aspects of that past to elicit its meaning. All truth claims aretherefore to some extent assertions of power, and all ‘true stories’ thusact to silence competing claims to truth.

In answering the question ‘Did Aurangzeb ban music?’, Iwill begin with a brief prologue, and then retell the story ofAurangzeb’s relationship with music from the most commonly usedprimary sources. I will then demonstrate how the testimony ofpreviously unheard voices in the literature alongside a more criticalinterpretation of the canonical sources sheds a different light on theseevents. Finally, I will conclude with an examination of how musichistory can be used to illuminate the nature of Aurangzeb’s politicalregime. For this, I argue, explains the lasting universal appeal of thelegend of Aurangzeb’s ban and burial of music. In the preface to JohnBaily’s report on the censorship of music in Afghanistan, Marie Korpeechoes my thoughts on the meaning of the Bamiyan Buddhas in saying:‘When music is banned the very soul of a culture is being strangled’.22

Beneath the pens of Manucci and Khafi Khan, music was transformedinto an elegy for freedom and tolerance crushed in the relentless gripof a bigoted despot.

Hira Bai Zainabadi: a Prologue

Histories of music under Aurangzeb usually begin with hisenthronement in 1658, with an acknowledgement that he toleratedmusical performance during the early years of his reign.23 Mostscholars have therefore overlooked perhaps the most telling musicalepisode of his life. Both music and love first entered the story ofthis austere prince in 1653, in the person of Hira Bai ‘Zainabadi’, abeautiful and accomplished singer and dancer who became the loveof his life.24 A faint memory of her survives in Manucci’s narrative,

22 Baily, ‘Can you stop the birds singing?’ (2001), p. 623 Wade, Imaging sound (1998), p. 18724 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), p. 806.

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where she is forced to serve the travel writer’s vision of Aurangzebas an extreme hypocrite, ‘good and holy to look at, but in reality anill-doer and devil’.25 She appears nameless as the woman who causedhim to

[neglect] for some time his prayers and his austerities, filling up his days withmusic and dances; and going even farther, he enlivened himself with wine,which he drank at the insistence of the said dancing girl. The dancer died,and Aurangzeb made a vow never to drink wine again nor to listen to music.26

The musical significance Manucci attaches to Hira Bai’s death ismisleading, as several other witnesses observed Aurangzeb listeningto music long after this event. However, the basic outline of the storyis confirmed by other more reliable sources.

According to the Ma’asir al-Umara’, Hira Bai was originally a singerand dancer in the household of Mir Khalil Khan Zaman, the husbandof Aurangzeb’s maternal aunt, and himself a skilled musician and well-known patron-connoisseur.27 In Shah Nawaz Khan’s more sympatheticretelling of the story, Aurangzeb met Hira Bai in Burhanpur, whenhe was viceroy of the Deccan, and immediately fell in love with her.However, in contrast to Manucci, Shah Nawaz Khan does not portrayAurangzeb as the devil of the piece. Rather, although the princestruggles manfully to maintain his purity, he is led involuntarily astrayby the beauty of Hira Bai, whose ‘movement was a heart-robbing oneand it robbed the Prince of his self-control and his virtue’. The conflictbetween his love for her and the requirements of his sincere religiousfaith causes an intense crisis, eloquently portrayed in Hira Bai’s testof his love, whereby she induces him against his will to drink wine, onlyto save him from it at the last minute. Shah Nawaz Khan argues that itwas Aurangzeb’s brother, Dara Shikoh, who maliciously transformedthe story into evidence of Aurangzeb’s hypocrisy and unfitness torule. In fact, the combination of wine, women and song is a standardrhetorical device frequently used in Indo-Persian literature to signifya prince’s unfitness to rule and his imminent downfall.28

25 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. iii p. 253.26 Ibid., vol. i p. 231.27 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), pp. 806–7.28 Brown, ‘If music be the food of love’ (forthcoming (a)). For further discussion of

the close association of wine, women and song in Indo-Persian and European writingsand its potential for use as a symbol of debauchery or hypocrisy, see also Brown,‘Reading Indian music’ (2000), pp. 17–18.

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Instead, Shah Nawaz Khan presents the story of Hira Bai as apoignant representation of firaq, the intensity of feeling associatedwith separation from a loved one that is such an important theme inIndian and Persian literature. Hira Bai died only nine months aftershe became Aurangzeb’s companion.29 Shah Nawaz Khan portrays intragic language a man devastated by her death, and ‘marked with theperpetual scar of separation’:

As the death of one’s beloved robs a man of his power, the Prince becamealtered on the day of her death and in his restlessness resolved to go outhunting. Mir Askari Aqil Khan was in his retinue, and when he had anopportunity of speaking privately to him he said: ‘Will it be advisable for youto go hunting when in this state (of mind)?’ In reply the Prince recited theverse:

Laments at home comfort not the heart,In the desert one can weep one’s fill.

Aqil Khan recited [his own] verse as suitable to the occasion:

How easy love appeared. Alas! how hard it was.How hard was parting, what rest the beloved attained.30

In this version, there is no vow never again to listen to music onaccount of Hira Bai’s death, nor any hint of the pious aversionto music that characterise later episodes in other sources. On thecontrary, Aurangzeb is portrayed here not as an antagonist of music,but as the devoted lover of a musician, the very embodiment ofmusic. Intense first experiences of both love and death often havea profound effect on future attitudes and behaviour. In Aurangzeb’scase, music was powerfully bound up with both. This importantformative episode in the future emperor’s life suggests that at somelevel, Aurangzeb’s instinctive reaction to music was positive andpowerful. It is significant that the only other woman believed to havecaptured Aurangzeb’s heart, the darling of his old age Udaipuri Bai,31

was likewise a musician. Moreover, although Manucci’s reading ofthe causal link between Hira Bai’s death and Aurangzeb’s futureactions was inaccurate, he was arguably right in suspecting her life and

29 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (1912–26), p. 171.30 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), p. 807.31 Sarkar, Studies in Aurangzib’s reign (1989), p. 17.

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death to be crucial in evaluating Aurangzeb’s later attitudes towardsmusic.

Sweet Music in the Divan: Scene One

In describing the War of Succession and the first ten years of hisreign (1658–68), Manucci uses several musical anecdotes to establishAurangzeb’s character. As already demonstrated in his treatmentof Hira Bai Zainabadi, Manucci is unable to project any aspect ofAurangzeb’s relationship with music as benign, because he perceivesthe emperor’s attitudes wholly in terms of hypocrisy and intolerance.In Manucci’s hands, music becomes a weapon in the battle betweengood and evil, epitomised by the two main rivals for the throne,Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. As a partisan of Dara Shikoh and amercenary in his army, Manucci consistently refers to his lord as acompassionate, liberal martyr, symbolised by his support of music,and to Aurangzeb as a cruel religious hypocrite, symbolised by hisrepression of it. After Dara’s extra-judicial execution while awaitingtrial for treason, Manucci recalls that the ‘common people’ composeda subversive protest song:

about Fortune and the little durability of its glories, it having placedAurangzeb on the throne, made Shah Jahan a prisoner, and decapitatedPrince Dara. It said: ‘in turn it changed the faqir’s (Aurangzeb’s) cowl,32 andbeheaded the prince in passing.’ When Aurangzeb heard about this ballad,he ordered an announcement to be made that no one should sing it underpenalty of losing his tongue. But the song was so pitiful that almost everybodysang it in concealment.33

This anecdote cannot be read as evidence of repressive tendenciestowards music so early. For several years after this alleged episode,the official Mughal chronicler recorded male and female musicians

32 This is a stab at Aurangzeb’s supposedly hypocritical piety, playing on thespurious rumour that he spent time as a faqir (poor religious mendicant), whichprobably arose from misunderstandings (deliberate or otherwise) of the phrase ‘toturn recluse’ in connection with his first falling out with Shah Jahan (c.1644); seeSarkar, History of Aurangzib (1912–26), pp. 76–8. ‘To turn recluse’ simply meant toresign from imperial service as an act of political protest, rather than the devout act ofbecoming a faqir. The biography of Shah Quli Khan Mahram in the Ma’asir al-Umara’describes a similar incident, in which Shah Quli Khan ‘donned the dress of a jogi andwent into retirement’ in protest at his punishment by Akbar; (1999), vol.ii p. 774.

33 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. i p. 362.

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and dancers dominating the anniversary celebrations of Aurangzeb’scoronation, including the emperor’s notable bestowal of 7000 rupeeson his principal musician, Khushhal Khan Kalawant.34 A numberof dhrupads composed in Aurangzeb’s honour still preserved in oraland written forms bear witness to his active involvement as a patronof music.35 Writing after 1699 of a feast in Aurangzeb’s war campin 1658, Manucci himself described Aurangzeb’s personal musiciansperforming all night ‘as is commonly the practice in Hindustan’.36 In1665, the jewel merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was similarly struckby the ‘sweet and pleasant’ sounds of the court musicians performing inAurangzeb’s presence at his daily darbar.37 That his patronage was notsimply a concession to court ceremonial is demonstrated by BakhtawarKhan in the Mir’at-i ‘Alam, which describes Aurangzeb as possessing a‘perfect expert’s knowledge’ of, and enjoying, the musical art.38 Thehigh-ranking nobleman Faqirullah described Aurangzeb’s favouritesingers and instrumentalists by name in 1666 in his musical treatisethe Rag Darpan, and noted the emperor’s enthusiastic enjoyment oftheir talents.39

The alleged proscription of this treasonous song should thereforebe regarded as a political act. However, in terms of Manucci’snarrative structure, the protest-song story also acts as a ‘type’, orforeshadowing, of the burial story, designed to establish Aurangzeb’sfanatical character. Type refers to the narrative construction of anearlier event in the light of a later event, drawing attention to realor imagined similarities in order to reinforce the main point of bothpassages. Both stories have striking parallels: they describe responsesby the powerless to an action by the powerful portrayed as having dealta devastating blow to freedom and tolerance; and both have nearlyidentical narrative structures. Widespread distress (the song was‘pitiful’, the musicians in ‘great grief’) leads ‘everybody’ (’the commonpeople’, ‘the musicians’) to rise up in musical protest (the protestsong, the burial march). In a display of repressive power, Aurangzebdismisses the sentiments of ‘the people’, and silences their public

34 Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (taken from the ‘Alamgirnama) (1977), pp. 106,112, 131, 161–2, 175.

35 See below and Ahmad, Hindustani music (1984), p. 104.36 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. i pp. 300–5.37 Tavernier, Travels (1925), pp. 81, xxi.38 Bakhtawar Khan, Mir’at-i ‘Alam (1877), p. 157.39 Faqirullah, Rag Darpan (1996), pp. 199, 207, 209.

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expression (‘Cut out his tongue!’ ‘Bury it!’). The correspondences inManucci’s stories become clearer if we compare his version of theburial with the Indo-Persian account in the Muntakhab al-Lubab.40

Missing from Khafi Khan’s narrative is the all-important moral ofManucci’s account—that ‘in spite of [the ban], the nobles did not ceaseto listen to songs in secret’.41 In Manucci’s parallel narratives, ‘thepeople’ (‘almost everybody’, ‘the nobles’) thereafter engage in secretsubversion, neatly undermining Aurangzeb’s authority and dislocatingpower from the centre. Both of Manucci’s anecdotes are thus designedto make two seemingly contradictory points: that Aurangzeb possessedand exercised overwhelming might, but that his rule was in realitywholly unpopular, fragile, and ineffectual.

The picture of Aurangzeb built up in the story of the protestsong is predicated on the widespread European view of him as acaricature villain, and the wishful thinking inspired by Europeanimperial ambitions.42 However, it also reflects Manucci’s personalantagonism towards Aurangzeb, and his difficulty in reconciling hisvision of an intolerant despot with widespread evidence of musicalactivity in the first ten regnal years. All Manucci’s musical stories ofthis period are designed to prove Aurangzeb’s puritanical tendencies;for example, his anecdote about a sarangi-smuggling ring supplyingShah Jahan’s prison behind Aurangzeb’s supposedly censorious back.43

Manucci’s ‘proof’ of long-standing antagonism towards music in thiscase is demonstrably false. Francois Bernier, a respected member ofthe court until 1668, noted that Shah Jahan continued to maintain allhis ‘singing and dancing women’ by Aurangzeb’s express permission, inall likelihood until his death in 1666.44 In other words, the truthfulnessof Manucci’s anecdotes is entirely secondary to the point he is tryingto make: despite the evidence, Manucci cannot escape his rhetoricalneed to portray Aurangzeb as an ancient enemy of Indian culture.On the contrary, prior to the burial incident, there is little evidenceof imperial hostility towards music outside the pages of Manucci’sjournal.

40 Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. 245.41 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii p. 8.42 Brown, ‘Reading Indian music,’ (1999), pp. 12–13, 28.43 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii p. 78.44 Bernier, Travels (1891), p. 166.

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That no Echo of it May Rise Again? Climax and Denouement

While Manucci’s account does not provide a date for the ban, threeIndo-Persian sources agree that some kind of prohibition was madein 1668–9—Khafi Khan’s Muntakhab al-Lubab,45 Bakhtawar Khan’sMir’at-i ‘Alam,46 and Saqi Musta‘idd Khan’s Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri,47 whichcites Bakhtawar Khan.48 The latter two sources, however, have beensomewhat neglected in the secondary literature.49 They present a verydifferent view of the ban than the canonical accounts (see below). Thisis significant, because it confirms that besides Manucci, only one near-contemporary version of the burial story is known to exist—that foundin Khafi Khan:

Distinguished and well-known musicians (kalawantan) and reciters of mystics’verses (qawwals), who were in the service of the court, were ordered to desistfrom music and their mansabs increased. General orders were given for theprohibition of music and dancing. It is said that one day musicians collectedtogether in a large crowd with great noise and tumult, prepared a bier withgreat dignity and carried it to the foot of the Jaroka Darshan, wailing in frontof and behind the bier. When the matter was reported to Aurangzeb, heinquired about the funeral. The musicians said ‘Music (rag) is dead; we aregoing to bury it.’ ‘Bury it so deep under the earth’ Aurangzeb remarked, ‘thatno sound or echo of it may rise again.’50

Khafi Khan’s account of the ban diverges from Manucci’s lavish taleof heartless destruction in several important respects. Firstly, thereare no invasions of private houses, summary arrests, or destructionof instruments. As far as I am aware, Manucci is the only near-contemporary writer to record these details. More importantly, themusicians are not left destitute because they cannot pursue theirvocations; rather the reverse, as their salaries and status are increasedin return for compliance. Secondly, unlike Manucci, Khafi Khan places

45 Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. 245.46 Bakhtawar Khan, Mir’at-i ‘Alam (1877), p. 157.47 Saqi Musta‘idd Khan, Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri (1947), p. 45.48 A number of less likely dates have been suggested for the ban on music, including

1659, 1665, 1678 and 1688. However, these cannot be anything other than purespeculation, as the contemporary accounts are clear in naming 1668–9 as the datefor the extension of shari‘a law. The ban certainly cannot have occurred earlier than1668. Francois Bernier, who lived in Shahjahanabad until 1668, and whose journalwas published in 1670, makes no mention of a prohibition against music during hisresidency in India.

49 Only one secondary author cites it directly; see Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’(1955), p. 27.

50 Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. 245.

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little religious significance on the episode, having the petitionersapproach Aurangzeb at the jharoka-i darshan in the customary way,rather than waylaying him on the way to the mosque.51 (In assessingthe historicity of Khafi Khan’s anecdote, it is worth noting that anappearance before the jharoka-i darshan at this time would have beenimpossible, literally speaking, as Aurangzeb had already abolished it.)Finally, although Khafi Khan does refer to ‘general orders. . .for theprohibition of music and dancing’, it is clear that the story’s mainconcern is the fate of high-prestige court musicians and classicalmusic. This is demonstrated by his emphasis on kalawants and qawwals,who at the time were the traditional exponents of dhrupad and khayalrespectively,52 and his use of the word rag, which specifically indicatesHindustani art music. Manucci’s interpretation is far broader thanthis, implicating not only the male singers and instrumentalists ofHindustan, but the courtesans as well, whose long-abandoned palacesare described as falling into ruin.53 In contrast, Khafi Khan seemsto restrict Aurangzeb’s orders to high-prestige male performers ofclassical music, in the imperial court.

Nevertheless, with this climactic event all mention of music ceasesin the Muntakhab al-Lubab. This act of silence may indicate thatKhafi Khan wishes to give an impression contrary to his qualifiednarrative of the burial: that the ban was comprehensive, and effectivelyenforced. If so, we would expect references to music-making inManucci’s journal to disappear as well. This is far from the case.Paradoxically, the remainder of the Storia do Mogor contains someof the most informative European descriptions of musical life inthe late seventeenth century. After describing categorically thebanishment or forced marriage of all the female dancers in the empire,Manucci notes that Aurangzeb ‘continued always to entertain in hispalaces, for the diversion of the queens and his daughters, severaldancing and singing women,’ an expression of leniency which Manuccipredictably interprets as hypocrisy.54 These passages are likely to referrespectively to two separate communities of female musician, kanchani,a community of accomplished courtesans who performed in malespace, and female musicans employed primarily in the harim, either

51 cf. Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii p. 8.52 Mirza Khan, Tohfat al-Hind, Bod f.115b.53 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii pp. 8–9.54 Ibid., p. 335; Brown, ‘Reading Indian music (2000), pp. 20–1.

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domni or ‘concubines’.55 It is likely in any case that Manucci’s storyof the suppression of female performers is merely an exaggerationof an incident recorded by Bernier. The latter noted with approvalthat by 1663, Aurangzeb had revoked Shah Jahan’s permission forkanchani to enter the imperial harim on his birthday, a practiceMughal etiquette widely censured as breaching the boundary betweenmale and female space.56 They were nevertheless still permitted tovisit Aurangzeb’s court on Wednesdays, although not to perform, inaccordance with ‘long established usage’.57 Manucci also describes indetail musical performances at noble births, at Muslim weddings, inpublic processions, at private parties, and to ward off evil, in this casean eclipse of the sun.58 While Manucci’s anecdotes are rarely dated,many of these descriptions can be pinpointed to occurences later than1668–9.

The reports of other European travellers in India c.1670–1700confirm this picture. These include descriptions of Muslim weddings,funerals, public processions, Muslim and Hindu religious festivals, theeclipse, and female musicians and dancers.59 None of these writersmention any official restrictions on Indian musical life, and all of themwitnessed performances by courtesans, in many cases commissionedby eminent Mughal officials.60 If military music, religious music,music associated with life-cycle events, processional music, and othertypes of public music-making continued without hindrance, if publicfemale musicians and dancers continued to play an integral part inboth private and official Mughal entertainments, and if, as Manuccisuggests, the male elite continued to patronise masters of classicalmusic regardless, it is hard to imagine what sort of ban could possiblyhave been enforced, let alone how it could have had any effect onmusical life or change. Even if we accept the veracity of Manucci’s andKhafi Khan’s narratives, we can only argue that the ban was restrictedto certain types of music, or that it was short lived, or that it waspoorly enforced and widely flouted. In all of these scenarios it wouldstill be possible for Aurangzeb’s enemies to portray him as a fanatic

55 Brown, ‘Hindustani music’ (2003), pp. 146, 148–53, 156–9.56 Ibid., 148–53.57 Bernier, Travels (1891), pp. 273–4.58 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii pp. 343, vol. iii pp. 142, 149–52.59 Fryer, A new account of East India (1909–15), vol. i pp. 237, 274–5, 334; Das, Norris

Embassy (1959), pp. 115, 161–2; Navarette Travels (1960–2), pp. 312, 318–19; Carre,Travels (1947), pp. 232, 301.

60 Carre, Travels (1947), pp. 232.

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with despotic tendencies, one who was either arbitrarily ruthless, ahypocrite, or a laughable failure. What cannot be said on the basis ofthese accounts is that a universal ban was successfully enforced.

The Irresistible Logic of Stereotype

Yet despite occasional qualifications, this seems to be the view thatmost historians and musicologists wish to perpetuate. The acceptedperception of Aurangzeb as a religious fanatic whose banishment ofmusic characterised the tyrannical nature of his regime—what I willcall the ‘received view’—has acted as a serious obstacle to the studyof music during this period. Very little analytical work has been doneon the history of music or indeed on any facet of ‘high’ culture duringAurangzeb’s reign, and this has in turn reinforced the assumptionthat there is nothing there to study. Several works have included briefdigressions on music under Aurangzeb,61 but most of these treatmentsrely on popular stereotypes and face-value readings of Manucci andKhafi Khan. It seems to be largely unrecognised that the oral traditionsof some of the most respected gharanas militate against the receivedview of Aurangzeb; the great Ustad Imrat Khan of the Imdad Khanigharana demonstrated for me in December 2000 a dhrupad compositionin praise of Aurangzeb preserved in his family’s repertoire for over 300years. A few dissenting voices (notably those of Francoise Delvoye andShahab Sarmadee) have been raised against the received view, butthese seem to have gone largely unheard.62

The consensus invariably reached on the basis of Manucci and KhafiKhan’s accounts of the ban is that ‘Aurangzeb’s reputation. . .was

61 Notably Bor, ‘Voice of the sarangi’ (1986/7); Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993);Ahmad, Hindustani music (1984); Trivedi ‘Tradition and transition’ (1999) and‘Hindustani music and dance’ (2000); Wade, Imaging sound (1998); S N H Rizvi, ‘Musicin Muslim India’ (1941) and Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’ (1955). Similar descriptionsof Aurangzeb’s treatment of music appear in the standard political histories of hisreign, such as Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (1912–26) and Richards, Mughal empire(1993).

62 Delvoye, ‘Indo-Persian literature on art-music’ (1994) and Sarmadee’sintroduction to Faqirullah, Rag Darpan (1996). Both base their dissenting views onthe Indo-Persian primary sources rather than on Manucci and Khafi Khan. Chandra(’Cultural and political role of Delhi’ (1986)) also puts forward a perspective contraryto the received view, and Bor has confirmed his view that Aurangzeb’s banning ofmusic is spurious (2002, personal communication).

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sealed forever. . .the prohibition against music applied to all’.63 Thesupposed consequences of this injunction are rarely speculated uponat length. Several scholars note without explanation the continuingrole of music in Aurangzeb’s harim, largely because Manucci’s lengthydescription of female harim musicians cannot be ignored.64 A fewwriters, notably Miner, Bhanu and N. P. Ahmad, briefly explore theban’s potential implications, including the possibility of subversionand alternative sources of patronage. All three use Manucci’s assertionthat the nobles ignored the ban to argue that aristocratic patronageof music continued under Aurangzeb, or even, according to Miner’snuanced thesis, expanded.65 Nevertheless, even they seem to feelobliged to restate unequivocally that under Aurangzeb’s unyieldingcontrol ‘music. . .suffered a setback. . .performance of music, except ofa devotional nature, was prohibited’,66 ‘all musicians and singers [weredismissed] from his country’;67 and ‘music was ruthlessly suppressedby this fundamentalist ruler. . .[who] finally banned the practice ofmusic altogether’.68

Dealing with the Discrepancies

Such unwillingness to challenge cherished assumptions aboutAurangzeb has produced some convoluted manglings of primarysource materials in attempts to deal with clear discrepancies betweenthe sources and the received view. It is in fact almost impossible tomaintain the received view of Aurangzeb based on the two versionsof the burial story, in the face of evidence from the same sourcesthat Aurangzeb’s nobles and harim continued their patronage of musiclargely unhindered. Thus, while forcefully asserting the historicityof a complete ban on musical activity, all the main discussions ofAurangzeb’s policies contain caveats that undermine such certainty.The tensions thus produced in discussions of the ban’s consequences

63 Wade, Imaging sound (1998), p. 187; see also S. N. H. Rizvi, ‘Music in MuslimIndia’ (1941), p. 338; Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’ (1955), p. 28; Ahmad, Hindustanimusic (1984), p. 6; Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993), p. 76; Bor, ‘Voice of the sarangi’(1986/7), p. 84; Richards, Mughal empire (1993), p. 173.

64 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii pp. 312–14.65 Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993), p. 78.66 Ahmad, Hindustani music (1984), p. 6.67 Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’ (1955), p. 28.68 Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993), p. 76.

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are invariably glossed over by resorting to one of two solutions. The firstis to argue, following Manucci, that a complete ban was enforced, butthat the nobles secretly subverted it. The only explicit supporter of thisview surveyed here, Miner states both that Aurangzeb’s ‘puritanicalattitude’ led to a ‘stoppage of support to music and a suppression ofit to some degree’, and that his ‘repression had no real effect on themusical atmosphere of the court at all’. She explains this apparentcontradiction by arguing that in defiance of the emperor, the Mughalamirs actually increased their patronage of music by taking on thelarge number of unemployed court musicians who remained in Delhi.She speculates that this shift in patronage led to large-scale musicalchange. Thus, while in her opinion Aurangzeb’s repressive policies hadan undoubted effect on music in the seventeenth century, it was theopposite of what he had intended.69

The second solution reflects Khafi Khan’s more restricted view of theban, and allows for a level of legal music making while still acceptingthe burial anecdote. One suggestion advanced by Bhanu and Miner isthat a number of court musicians sought to escape Aurangzeb’s sphereof influence by migrating to other (Hindu) courts such as Bikaner.70

Although some migration may have taken place (this was in any casecommonplace)71, this argument is problematic. It ignores the fact thatthe Rajput rulers of such states were fully and closely integrated intothe Mughal hierarchy as mansabdars, many of them of very high rank,with a tradition of loyal service to the Mughal emperor. Raja AnupSingh of Bikaner, for example, was granted a mansab of 2500 zat, 2000savar on his accession in the ninth year of Aurangzeb’s reign (1667).72

The emperor later increased this to 3500 as a reward for loyal service,ranking him among the top 150 nobles.73 Richards notes that loyaltywas successfully maintained between Aurangzeb and his top 1000mansabdars by a system of extensive face-to-face encounters.74 It is morethan likely that the rulers of such states, with their entire householdsincluding musicians,75 spent a large amount of time at the imperial

69 Ibid., pp. 77–8.70 Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’ (1955), p. 29; see also Miner, Sitar and sarod (1993),

p. 78.71 e.g. della Valle, The pilgrim (1989), p. 243.72 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), vol.i pp. 765–6.73 Ali, The Mughal nobility (1966), p. 228. His son, Swarup Singh, was also a mansabdar

(1500 savar); see Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), vol. i p. 766.74 Richards, Mughal administration (1975), pp. 243–4.75 Mirza Nathan, a general in the armies of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, took his

kalawants and courtesans with his household on military campaigns (Baharistan-i Ghaybi

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court in Delhi, and in Aurangzeb’s camp during his thirty years ofcampaigning in the Deccan. Hence, by transferring allegiance to theselesser rulers, the erstwhile imperial musicians would nevertheless haveremained fully under Aurangzeb’s eye. Another possibility suggestedby Bhanu is that the ban only applied to the court of the emperor.76

This would legitimise musical activity outside the specific limit ofthe imperial darbar. Finally, several writers argue that the largeincrease in the number of Indo-Persian musical treatises writtenunder Aurangzeb was the direct result of his suppression of practicaloutlets for musical creativity. More musical treatises in Persian werewritten during Aurangzeb’s reign than in the previous 500 years ofMuslim rule in India, and all of them make significant references tocurrent music making. Faced with this mass of primary evidence tothe contrary, such scholars nevertheless cling to the view that musicwas silenced during this period, speculating instead that frustratedmusicians were forced to channel their stifled musicianship intowriting about it.77 This somewhat perverse argument can only beunderstood in the context of an inability to escape the received view.

Did Aurangzeb Bury Music?

Some of these solutions have merit, particularly those of Bhanu andMiner. However, they are all predicated on the assumption that theban and burial stories in Khafi Khan and Manucci are true, andthat the information they present simply needs to be collated andexplained. One solution that has not been considered by any proponentof the received view is that the burial anecdote, found in only twosources, is mythical. Most secondary accounts offer no assessmentof the primary sources, treating them as fact, and those that doare largely uncritical.78 However, seventeenth-century travel journalsrequire particular care in their assessment as historical sources,79

and of all the travel accounts of this period, Manucci’s is the most

(1936), vol. i p. 512, vol. ii pp. 144, 476), as did men under the command of GhaziuddinFeroz Jang during Aurangzeb’s reign (see below).

76 Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’ (1955), p. 29.77 e.g. Ahmad, Hindustani music (1984), pp. 3–7.78 e.g. Richards, Mughal empire (1993), p. 306; Wade, Imaging sound (1998), p. lii;

and Bor, ‘Voice of the sarangi’ (1986/7), p. 63.79 See Brown, ‘Reading Indian music’ (1999) and (2000).

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controversial.80 Khafi Khan’s account is also not straightforward.As Delvoye suggests, in order to establish the historicity of theburial narratives, we first need to conduct ‘a thorough study of thepersonalities and the motivations of their authors, [which] wouldcertainly lead to a serious questioning of this simplistic vision’.81

The Origins of the Burial

Khafi Khan was born into an Irani family, and grew up in the Deccan.He took up a minor position in the Mughal administration as a revenuecollector in 1684, and towards the end of Aurangzeb’s reign workedas a newswriter in the region of Ahmedabad.82 The Muntakhab al-Lubab, a general history of the Mughal dynasty, was compiled between1718 and 1734. While the section devoted to Aurangzeb is basedon contemporary records for the first ten regnal years, Khafi Khancomplains that the lack of written sources after 1667 forced himto rely on his ‘memory’ for subsequent events.83 Given that he wasonly four years old in 1668 and living in the Deccan, his ‘memory’ ofAurangzeb’s ban is hardly likely to be reliable. This would seem toplace his account of the ban and burial at least fifty years after theevent. In contrast, the Venetian adventurer Niccolao Manucci wrotehis Storia do Mogor in Madras at the end of Aurangzeb’s lifetime, havingspent some years in residence in Delhi. His version of the story wouldtherefore appear to be earlier than Khafi Khan’s. Nonetheless, it wasstill only written down after 1699, after more than thirty years hadelapsed.

Throughout his journal, Manucci emphasises his unique familiaritywith Mughal society,84 and is keen to portray his account of theMughal court as being trustworthier than all other travel writers’.85

Certainly, Manucci presents some of the most extensive Europeandescriptions of music during this period. These appear more valuable

80 See Maiello, ‘Mughal justice’ (1984), pp. 623–9; Sarkar, History of Aurangzib(1912–26), p. xxi-ii; Devra, ‘Manucci’s comments’ (1984), p. 351 and William Irvine’sintroduction to the Storia do Mogor (1907), vol. i.

81 Delvoye, ‘Indo-Persian literature’ (1994), p. 118.82 Syed’s introduction to Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. xiii-v.83 Ibid., xiv.84 Maiello, ‘Mughal justice’ (1984), p. 628; Brown, ‘Reading Indian music’ (1999),

p. 27.85 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. i p. 3.

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when the length of his residence in India (1653–1717) and hisfirsthand knowledge of the imperial capital are considered. He alsogives the impression of having been well acquainted with membersof the Mughal establishment. However, he regularly exaggerates theextent of his influence, portraying himself as indispensable to Mughalsociety, even giving the impression that he personally wielded morepower than either the emperor or Islam:

It was so common to drink spirits when Aurangzeb ascended the throne, thatone day he said in a passion that in all Hindustan no more than two mencould be found who did not drink, namely, himself and ‘Abd-al-wahhab, thechief qazi appointed by him. . . But with respect to ‘Abd-al-wahhab he was inerror, for I myself sent him every day a bottle of spirits (vino), which he drankin secret, so that the king could not find it out.86

The sense of his being central to the imperial court, with a privilegedunderstanding of its inner workings, is also conveyed in many of hisdescriptions of music. His detailed description of female musicians inthe harim, for example, is presented as the eyewitness account of onewho has ‘a special acquaintance with all these secrets and of manyothers, which is not in place for me to state’.87

Manucci’s claim to be an eyewitness in this case is dubious. Itis highly unlikely that he ever observed Aurangzeb’s harim. Hisdescription is possibly even invented—the same names appear in morethan one of his lists, including that of Hira Bai who had been deadsince 1654. Even Francois Bernier, Dara Shikoh’s personal physicianand an intimate of some of the leading nobles, entered Aurangzeb’sharim only once, blindfolded. He wrote: ‘I now wish I could lead youabout in the Seraglio, as I have done in the rest of the Fortress: butwho is the Traveller that can speak of that as an eye-witness?’.88

Perhaps to bolster his claim of possessing such information, Manuccigave his fellow traveller John Fryer the impression that he had beenchief physician to Aurangzeb for forty years.89 This was simply nottrue. Manucci was a self-educated Venetian mercenary whose patchycontact with Mughal society was supplied by a series of the leastdesirable military jobs90 and a three-year stint as ‘physician’ to the wife

86 Ibid., vol. ii p. 4.87 Ibid., vol. ii p. 334.88 Teltscher, India inscribed (1997), p. 42.89 Ibid.90 See Gordon, Marathas, marauders (1994), p. 188, for a pungent description of the

lowly status of artillerymen, of which Manucci was one.

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of Shah ‘Alam (later Bahadur Shah, r.1707–12). While in the princess’service, Manucci may have had contact with female slaves in Shah‘Alam’s residential quarters. However, these slaves did not belong tothe imperial harim, as none of the royal princes lived within the wallsof the imperial fort.91 Moreover, Manucci was not even living in Shah‘Alam’s palace, and he specifically states that it was only through theprince’s female slaves that he gained information about life withinthis household. It is also clear from Manucci’s descriptions that allhis dealings with the princess were conducted through a curtain.92

Despite this, he claims that Shah ‘Alam allowed him freely to wanderabout the harim whenever he liked:

It is the custom in the royal household, when a physician is called within themahal, for the eunuch to cover his head with a cloth, which hangs down to hiswaist. They then conduct him to the patient’s room, and he is taken out inthe same manner. . .The prince. . .ordered them to uncover me, and that infuture I was to be allowed to come in and go out without being covered. Hesaid that the minds of Christians were not filthy like those of Mahomedans.93

This passage is quite implausible, and appears to have been designedto draw attention to Manucci’s superiority over his literary archrival,Bernier. Bernier witnessed many of the same events as Manucci, froma much more privileged position,94 and published his travels (1670)to great acclaim thirty years before Manucci began writing. Manuccifrequently sneers at Bernier’s supposed shortcomings when comparedwith his own superior understanding of the situation.95 However, itis well known that Manucci relied heavily on Bernier’s publishedjournal, not merely for the form of his observations, but also fortheir contents and perspective. Maiello argues that ‘Manucci’s workoften seems an artificial elaboration of Bernier’s comments. . .givenBernier’s accurate and detailed description, Manucci’s observationsnot only appear redundant but also somewhat insipid.’ Furthermore,his attempt to outdo Bernier ‘leads the Venetian traveller. . .to giveundue credit to sordid hearsay information’.96 Even William Irvine,who suggests more kindly that Manucci merely used Bernier as amemory aid, argues that his ‘supposed extracts from the Mogul official

91 Blake, Shahjahanabad (1993), pp. 45, 75.92 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. iii pp. 393, 397–8.93 Ibid., p. 400.94 After Dara Shikoh’s death, Bernier was appointed personal adviser to

Danishmand Khan, Aurangzeb’s ‘secretary of state’ for foreign affairs.95 e.g. Ibid., vol. i p. 220, vol. ii pp. 65–75.96 Maiello, ‘Mughal justice’ (1984), pp. 625–6.

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chronicles are for the reigns preceding that of Shahjahan a tissue ofabsurdities’.97 Manucci’s reliance on ‘bazaar rumours’ for the rest ofhis narrative is also proverbial.98

In short, Manucci did possess extensive experiential knowledgeof Mughal India, and served various members of the Mughalestablishment over some years. It would be unwise summarily todismiss his descriptions of musical events in Aurangzeb’s reign assimilarly being a ‘tissue of absurdities’. However, rather than beinga trusted and close servant of the court with personal access toAurangzeb’s harim and extensive influence among the nobles, not onlydid Manucci have no more than a marginal position in Shahjahanabad,but his observations and even his opinions are often based on Bernier’saccount, many of those that are original are second-hand anecdotesof dubious origin, and his claims to be a privileged eyewitnesssometimes collapse under scrutiny. Moreover, Manucci’s travel journaldemonstrates a hatred for Aurangzeb that verges on the irrational.Maiello argues that this fierce antagonism created ‘the most blatantdistortion present in his narrative’,99 a distortion that I have shown tobe present in many of his musical anecdotes.

Given Manucci’s hostility towards Aurangzeb and his treatment ofmusic primarily in symbolic terms, it is very difficult to verify theextent of historical accuracy in his account of the ban and burial.The ban itself seems to have some basis in fact, as there is evidenceindependent of the two burial stories to confirm that some sort ofrestrictions were placed on music in 1668–9. However, the burial storyis of more dubious genesis. In this case, Manucci did not use Bernier asa source, as Bernier makes no mention of the ban. Nor does Manucciclaim to have been an eyewitness, which almost certainly shows thathe was not there. At best, Manucci’s version of the ban and burialis probably second-hand gossip written down at a distance of thirtyyears, embellished to portray Aurangzeb in the worst possible light. Inthe absence of an earlier version of the burial story than Manucci’s, itwould be tempting to dismiss it as a product of his fertile imagination.

However, a closer inspection of Khafi Khan’s narrative showsthat his burial narrative was copied almost word for word from asignificantly earlier source than Manucci, attributed to an Aurangzebi

97 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. i pp. lxxii-iii.98 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (1912–26), p. xxi-ii.99 Maiello, ‘Mughal justice’ (1984), pp. 629.

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mansabdar, ‘Ma‘muri’.100 ‘Abdul Fazl Ma‘muri supposedly enteredimperial service c.1655 and lived to record Aurangzeb’s death in1707. However, Syed points out that such a lengthy period of servicewould have been unlikely. Furthermore, the only mansabdar by thename of ‘Abdul Fazl Ma‘muri listed anywhere in the records diedin 1655. Syed argues that ‘Ma‘muri’ was the collective nom de plumeof at least three imperial officers who wished, on account of theiropposition to Aurangzeb, to remain anonymous. Although ‘Ma‘muri’seems to have had contact with various courtiers, as well as Aurangzebhimself, Syed states that the account is chronologically inaccurateand contains many other errors. However, ‘Ma‘muri’ may have begunwriting as early as 1681.101 This means that Khafi Khan’s accountof the ban and burial represents a considerably earlier version of thestory than Manucci’s, borrowed from an author who claimed to bean eyewitness.102 Given the mystery surrounding ‘Ma‘muri’, however,this claim is difficult to rely on; the author also gives himself a fictionalbackground, positions, and mansab rank.103 In addition, any story toldby ‘Ma‘muri’ is likely deliberately to portray the emperor in a negativelight. The historicity of the burial story therefore remains doubtful.All that can be said with any degree of certainty is that Manucci wasnot its originator, and that, at least among Aurangzeb’s enemies, thestory was in circulation thirteen years after the event.

Disposing of the Body

My conclusions on the trustworthiness of the burial story have severalimplications in assessing the nature of Aurangzeb’s restrictions onmusic. Firstly, if Khafi Khan’s account is the earlier version of the story,we should disregard as fictional any information or interpretationsthat appear only in Manucci. Secondly, there is no evidence that thestory of the burial protest is anything other than a myth propagatedby Aurangzeb’s enemies. This is not to downplay its contemporarysignificance as a metaphor of the anxieties and frustrated ideals of onefaction of Mughal society. However, its status as music history, andespecially its claims of totality, should be rejected. We need to dismiss

100 Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubab (1977), p. 245; cf. ‘Ma‘muri’, f.139b-40a.101 Ibid., p. xii-xxv.102 Ibid., p. 245 n.1; ‘Ma‘muri’, f.140a.103 Ibid., p. xxiii-vi.

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both accounts of the burial protest, and to accept the priority of KhafiKhan’s interpretation of the ban itself. By integrating this perspectivewith a discussion of the lesser-used primary sources, a very differentpicture to the received view of Aurangzeb begins to emerge.

Reinterpreting the Ban

Khafi Khan’s understanding of the ban suggests that Aurangzeb’srestrictions may only have applied to qawwals and kalawants in theservice of the imperial court. Furthermore, these restrictions weredesigned to minimise any hardship the musicians might otherwisehave endured. This picture corresponds with the record of the ban inthe much earlier Mir’at-i ‘Alam by Bakhtawar Khan (written 1658–1684). Bakhtawar Khan’s interpretation also coincides with Bernier’sunderstanding of the restrictions placed on the kanchani. In 1668–9,‘as the Emperor had no liking for pleasure, and his devotion to duty lefthim no time for festivity, he ordered that the chief musicians KhushhalKhan, Bisram Khan, Rasbin, and others might come to the Court, butmust not make music’.104 The Mir’at-i ‘Alam confirms Khafi Khan’sstatement that the musicians’ mansabs were increased if they choseto renounce their vocation.105 Moreover, in noting that the emperor’salternative solution to increasing their salaries was to grant land fortheir maintenance, Bakhtawar Khan’s account is confirmed by therecord of a land grant drawn up precisely around this time (5 June1672), bestowed upon Ilah-Dad, son of one of the court musicians ‘onaccount of his giving up music (sarud) as a means of earning (kasb)’.106

104 Cited in Saqi Musta‘idd Khan, Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri (1947), p. 45.105 Bakhtawar Khan, Mir’at-i ‘Alam (1877), p. 157.106 Shakeb, Batala collection of Mughal documents (1990), pp. 8–9. The fuller text runs

as follows: ‘A hukm-nama dated 8 Saf [1083] (5 June 1672) issued by Asad Khan duringthe 15th regnal year of Aurangzeb. . .The agents (gumashtas) of the present and futurejagirdars and karuris of the pargana of Jalalabad in Punjab suba are informed that a grantof ten bighas of fallow but cultivable land excluded from tax (kharaj-jam) was assignedto Ilah-Dad son of Darbar Mughanni [probably simply ‘court musician’ rather thana title or name] on account of his giving up music (sarud) as a means of earning(kasb). . .The agents should therefore. . .leave the said land in the grantee’s possessionafter measuring and marking it out. They should henceforth show no interest init whatsoever nor initiate any change or alteration so that the grantee may keep himselfengaged in prayer for the perpetuation of the empire while using its yields (hasilat) unhinderedfor his livelihood (ma‘ishat)’ (italics mine). It should be noted that the italicised finalphrase is a standard exhortation used on most land grants regardless of the status ofthe grantee, prayer merely constituting the quid pro quo of being the grateful beneficiary

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What is most interesting about Bakhtawar Khan’s account though,is that it portrays Aurangzeb’s restrictions purely as an act of personalpiety with no wider implications for public policy. It is importantto note that Aurangzeb personally authorised the publication of theMir’at-i ‘Alam. Historians commonly state that he banned the writingof historical chronicles along with everything else in the eleventhyear of his reign.107 On the contrary, after Bakhtawar Khan’s deathin 1684, Aurangzeb gave the author’s disciple Saqi Musta‘idd Khanpermission to publish the Mir’at-i ‘Alam. This work echoes the officialline so closely that some scholars say it might as well have been writtenby Aurangzeb himself.108 Hence, the interpretation of the ban found inthe Mir’at-i ‘Alam and the Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri is most likely to representAurangzeb’s official stance on music:

Though he has collected at the foot of his [throne]. . .singers who possesslovely voices and clever instrumental performers, and in the commencementof his reign sometimes used to hear them sing and play, and though hehimself understands music well, yet now for several years past, on accountof his great restraint and self-denial, and observance of the great Imam. . .heentirely abstains from this amusement. If any of the singers and musiciansbecomes ashamed of his calling, he makes an allowance for him or grantshim land for his maintenance. . .Mirza Mukarram Khan Safavi, who was anexpert in the musical art, once said to His Majesty ‘What is your Majesty’sview of music?’ The Emperor answered (in Arabic) ‘It is mubah [permissible],neither good nor bad.’ The Khan asked, ‘Then what kind of it is in youropinion most worthy to be heard?’ The Emperor replied, ‘I cannot listen tomusic without [instruments] especially pakhawaj, but that is unanimouslyprohibited (haram); so I have left off hearing singing too.’109

Exactly what genres Aurangzeb regarded as haram is unclear. Fromthe names of the musicians whom he requested to stop performing inhis presence, it is apparent that Aurangzeb no longer allowed himselfto listen to dhrupad, always accompanied by pakhawaj, or to instrumentalmusic. Khushhal Khan Kalawant, a descendant of Tansen, was thegreatest dhrupad singer of his generation, and Ras Bin was a ‘superb’

of the emperor’s bounty, and nothing to do with this particular grantee having beena musician.

107 e.g. Richards, Mughal empire (1993), p. 173.108 S. A. A. Rizvi, A socio-intellectual history (1986), p. 275–7.109 Bakhtawar Khan, Mir’at-i ‘Alam (1877), p. 157; Saqi Musta‘idd Khan, Ma’asir-i

‘Alamgiri (1947), p. 313. Sarkar translates mazamir here as ‘flutes’ (Saqi Musta‘iddKhan, Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri (1947), p. 313); this is incorrect. In the context of legaldebates on sama‘, from which Aurangzeb’s statements ultimately derive, the wordmazamir means ‘instruments’ generically.

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bin player,110 both considered art music. The ‘forbidden’ status of thepakhawaj furthermore suggests that Aurangzeb’s restrictions wouldhave applied to all accompanied genres, which included most genres ofart music. However, it is also clear that Aurangzeb’s abstinence was aprivate matter, undertaken at personal cost to one who was obviouslya connoisseur, for reasons of religious conscience and dedication toweightier matters.111 The idea that music should not be permittedto interfere with a man’s serious duties was the consensus of Mughalmale culture from at least Akbar’s reign.112 However, Aurangzeb’sdeclaration that music is permissible indicates that his personalrenunciation was not intended to be forced upon other patron-connoisseurs. The Mir’at-i ‘Alam also suggests that the court musicianswere encouraged rather than forced to give up performing. In short,the semi-official account depicts Aurangzeb as a benign, culturedruler who personally gave up listening to art music out of religiousconviction, but who did not translate his act of personal piety intopublic policy.

There are two possible ways of interpreting this portrayal ofAurangzeb’s official stance. It may be that in 1668–9 he didattempt more general restrictions on music that were extensivelyflouted and therefore became unenforceable. This account mayrepresent a face-saving exercise aimed at maintaining the integrityof Aurangzeb’s public persona, while covering up the failure of hisattempts at prohibition by retrospectively transforming public ordersinto unofficial encouragement and voluntary renunciation. However,this seems improbable. Instead, on the evidence of Saqi Musta‘iddKhan and Bakhtawar Khan, I would propose that there was no publicprohibition of music in Aurangzeb’s reign, and that the only music thatwas prohibited was the performance of elite, accompanied genres inthe presence of the emperor himself. Moreover, as Dargah Quli Khanshows with respect to Muhammad Shah, the personal abstention ofthe emperor from musical life would have had no negative impactoutside the imperial darbar.113

110 Ras Baras Khan, Shams al-Aswat SJ, ff. 3a-b; Faqirullah, Rag Darpan (1996),p. 209.

111 Saqi Musta‘idd Khan, Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri (1947), p. 45.112 Brown, ‘Hindustani music’ (2003), p. 138–41 and ‘If music be the food of love’

(forthcoming (a)).113 Dargah Quli Khan, Muraqqa‘-i Dehli (1993), p. 102. After Nadir Shah’s invasion

of Delhi in 1739, Muhammad Shah ‘abstains himself from the musical soirees and

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Musical Life in Aurangzeb’s Empire

This last point is fully borne out by evidence from other primarysources. The Mirzanama of Mirza Kamran, written no earlier than1672, shows that musical patronage continued as customary amongstthe Mughal amirs.114 The popular masnavi of Muhammad AkramGhanimat, Nairang-i ‘Ishq, written in 1685, makes extensive (ifpartly allegorical) commentary on the presence of musicians anddancers at mehfils he attended, one of whom he famously fell inlove with.115 A large number of Aurangzeb’s amirs are rememberedas patrons of music during his reign, including many who were hisclose associates and relatives. The father of Aurangzeb’s principalwife, Shah Nawaz Khan Safavi, is described in the Ma’asir al-Umara’as having ‘given his heart to rag. . . He gathered together singersand instrumentalists, the like of which were not to be found inany other place at that time’.116 As previously noted, Aurangzeb’suncle by marriage, Mir Khalil Khan Zaman (5000 zat/4000 savar d.1684), was similarly renowned for his patronage of music, and also forhis own musicianship.117 Aurangzeb’s powerful prime minister AsadKhan (7000/7000 appointed 1686, d. 1717) likewise maintained acompany of singers and musicians of legendary proportions,118 andthe important manuscripts on Hindustani music known to have beencommissioned by Diyanat Khan (2000/1500 d. 1713), governor ofAurangabad during Aurangzeb’s Deccan campaign, indicate that hetoo was an important patron. Chandra argues there was no shortageof other patrons willing to fill the gap left by Aurangzeb’s withdrawalfrom musical patronage in the shape of the governors of provincialcapitals.119 Several paintings, for example, produced c.1680–1710 atthe court of Udaipur depict musicians performing for Maharana JaiSingh (5000/5000 savar) and Maharana Amar Singh (also 5000/5000),both (publicly at least) loyal to Aurangzeb.120

has suspended them at court’; ibid., p. 122. This had no observable impact on musicallife—the Muraqqa‘-i Dehli is a byword for vibrant descriptions of musical culture.

114 Mirza Kamran, Mirzanama (1913), pp. 6, 11.115 Muhammad Akram Ghanimat, Nairang-i ‘Ishq, f.13a-14a.116 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1888), vol. ii p. 685.117 Ibid. (1999), vol. i p. 806.118 Ibid., vol. i p. 279.119 Chandra, ‘Cultural and political life’ (1986), p. 208.120 Topsfield, Paintings from Rajasthan (1980), pp. 57–8, 60 and ‘The royal paintings’

(1995), p. 189. Mewar (Udaipur) was one of the Rajput states that rose unsuccessfully

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Delhi itself seems to have continued as a centre of cultural patronageunder the governorship of Aurangzeb’s intimate companion, MirAskari Aqil Khan (4000/1000 d. 1696), after the emperor leftfor the Deccan in 1679, never to return. Chandra suggests that‘a small leisured class had emerged at Delhi which had both themeans and the desire to offer patronage to cultural activities’ at thistime.121 Patronage seems to have centred around the royalty and theupper echelons of the nobility, and on circles of Sufi adepts. It islikely that the great patrons of the day, notably Aurangzeb’s sisterJahanara (d.1681), his favourite daughter Zebunnissa,122 and AqilKhan himself, continued to provide employment for musicians whoremained in Delhi.123 The imperial capital was also a major centre ofChishti Sufism, with an important patron in the princess Jahanara.S. A. A. Rizvi states that both Naqshbandi and Chishti Sufis in Delhiengaged in the practice of sama‘ throughout Aurangzeb’s reign.124 Thecelebrated poet Mirza ‘Abdul Qadir Bedil (500 zat d. 1720), who livedin Delhi from 1684 until 1720 and was an intimate of Aqil Khan, wasfamous for his musicianship,125 as were several other members of hiscircle126 including Saif Khan Faqirullah (3000/2500, d. 1684), whowrote the most important musical treatise of Aurangzeb’s reign, theRag Darpan (1666).

It could perhaps be argued that Aurangzeb’s absence from Delhiled to a renaissance of musical life there, nourished by a select groupof patrons away from the emperor’s reproving eye. However, thereis ample evidence to suggest that musicians continued to attendtheir patrons in Aurangzeb’s war camps and temporary capitalsin the Deccan. Musicians were highly visible in the entourage ofGhaziuddin Feroz Jang (7000/7000 d.1711), the Mughal general whowas responsible for the successful siege of Bijapur in 1687 and was

against Aurangzeb in 1679–80, under Jai Singh’s father Raj Singh, who submitted toAurangzeb before his death in 1680; see Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999),vol. i pp. 763–4. Jai Singh’s and Amar Singh’s mansabs placed both among Aurangzeb’stop fifty noblemen; see Ali, Mughal nobility (1964), p. 220.

121 Chandra, ‘Cultural and political life’ (1986), p. 209.122 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), vol. ii p. 612.123 Chandra, ‘Cultural and political life’ (1986), p. 208.124 S. A. A. Rizvi, History of Sufism (1983), pp. 250, 272.125 Bindraban Das, Safina-i Khushgu, f. 72a.126 For details of the overlapping friendship circles primarily responsible for the

cultivation of music in Aurangzeb’s reign, see Brown, ‘Hindustani music’ (2003),pp. 128–33. These expose a strong link between the patronage of music and poetryand adherence to Sufism.

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rewarded for his loyalty with one of the highest mansab ranks.127 Theirperformances ‘brought the hearts of listeners to ecstasy with sweetmelodies, singing and playing the tambur and other instruments’.128

The English ambassador to Aurangzeb, William Norris (1699–1702),used a Flemish musician in the service of Osman Dara as a translator inthe imperial camp.129 The traveller Careri witnessed Holi celebrationsin the Mughal camp in 1693 that included a formal performance ofsinging and dancing to entertain the Mughal governor.130 It is alsoreasonable to suggest that Raja Anup Singh of Bikaner (3500/2000d.1697), who spent most of his life campaigning for Aurangzeb inthe Deccan, may have included in his entourage his most famousimperial trophy, the musician and theorist Bhava Bhatta.131 Underthese circumstances, it is hard to imagine that Aurangzeb, lying in histent at night, would never have heard the faint strains of music carriedon the wind from the tents of his loyal generals all around him.

But by far the most important patron of music in the lateseventeenth century was Aurangzeb’s third son, Muhammad A‘zamShah (1653–1707). He was a widely popular figure,132and for much ofhis life, A‘zam was also Aurangzeb’s favourite son.133 As he was onlyfifteen years old in 1668, and died in the same year as his father, hisentire career as a patron coincided with the years of Aurangzeb’ssupposed ‘ban’. A‘zam was famous for his superior musicianship.According to Bindraban Das, he was unequalled in his knowledgeof the fundamentals of music and dance, and even the great mastersasked his advice. He possessed a perfect command of many genresof Hindavi poetry, and he was above all famed for his excellentmusical compositions.134 A‘zam was also renowned as a patron of greatdiscernment, demonstrated in his crucial involvement in establishingthe career of Bedil (who was in his service until 1684). His mehfilswere remembered well into the eighteenth century for attracting thegreatest connoisseurs and musicians.135 Not only did he commission

127 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), pp. 589.128 Simon Digby, ‘Some Asian wanderers’ (1993), p. 264.129 Das, Norris Embassy (1959), p. 211.130 Careri, Indian travels (1949), pp. 210–11.131 Bhanu, ‘Promotion of music’ (1955), p. 29.132 Bindraban Das, Safina-i Khushgu, f. 36a.133 Sarkar, Studies in Aurangzib’s reign (1989), p. 43; Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir

al-Umara’ (1999), p. 790.134 Bindraban Das, Safina-i Khushgu, f. 36a.135 Inayat Khan Rasikh, Risala-i Zikr-i Mughanniyan-i Hindustan (1961), pp. 30–1.

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one of the most influential musical treatises of the seventeenthcentury, the fifth chapter of the Tohfat al-Hind (c.1675),136 but hewas responsible for nurturing the early career of one of the greatestmusicians of the next century, Ni’mat Khan Kalawant ‘Sadarang’, aswell as patronising his father Nirmol Khan.137 It seems likely thatthe critical role of the imperial patron in nourishing musical life andinspiring new trends devolved onto Muhammad A‘zam Shah afterhis father renounced it. If this was the case, it is conceivable thatA‘zam inherited the patronage of the musicians who once adornedAurangzeb’s mehfils.

Aurangzeb and the Kalawants Finally Speak

Nevertheless, exactly what happened to Khushhal Khan Kalawantand the other kalawants and qawwals in Aurangzeb’s service remainsunclear. It seems fairly certain from Bakhtawar Khan and SaqiMusta‘idd Khan that, contrary to Miner and Chandra,138 the imperialmusicians were not dismissed, and could comfortably have remained inAurangzeb’s service with their increased mansabs had they so wished.However, Dargah Quli Khan suggests that the emperor’s personalmusicians (in the case of Muhammad Shah) were forbidden fromperforming outside his assemblies unless they were released from hisservice.139 It may be that Aurangzeb’s qawwals and kalawants effectivelyfelt ‘encouraged’ to choose between never performing again, orleaving his service. Because of the religious motivations behind hisactions, the musicians and Aurangzeb’s opponents could conceivablyhave construed this as constructive dismissal—and as evidence of anincreasingly Islamic public agenda.

There are two insurmountable problems with this scenario. The firstis that there is no evidence of a mass departure of kalawants and qawwalsfrom Aurangzeb’s service, or even, apart from the accounts above, of anorder to keep silent in the emperor’s presence. One would expect such

136 Brown, ‘Hindustani music’ (2003), pp. 73–4; Ansari, Tohfat al-Hind (1968),p. 5.

137 Inayat Khan Rasikh, Risala-i Zikr-i Mughanniyan-i Hindustan (1961), pp. 30–1.138 Chandra, ‘Cultural and political role’ (1986), pp. 207–8.139 Dargah Quli Khan, Muraqqa‘-i Dehli (1993), p. 102. The ‘female kalawant’ Kamal

Bai could only be heard in public after Muhammad Shah suspended the patronage ofhis musicians.

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a major event in music history as the cessation of imperial patronageto warrant at least some commentary in the Indo-Persian musicaltreatises of the period. Yet not one treatise written between 1660 and1750 mentions any restrictions on music during Aurangzeb’s reign, orany large-scale departure or dismissal of musicians from the imperialcourt. Furthermore, all of them make significant references to currentmusic making. Most crucially, there is no mention of any politically-inspired musical crises in the Shams al-Aswat, written in 1698 by theson of Khushhal Khan Kalawant, the principal target of Aurangzeb’sorder to stop performing. Ras Baras Khan Kalawant describes hisfather’s life and career at length, including such detailed informationas the fact that he had weak blood and died of an apoplexy.140 There isno record of him either ceasing to perform on Aurangzeb’s request, orleaving imperial service. Furthermore, Ras Baras Khan’s introductionincludes an unusually lengthy dedication to Aurangzeb, demonstratingthat the emperor was still his patron.141

Ras Baras Khan’s extravagant dedication to the emperor suggeststhat Aurangzeb continued to encourage theoretical discourse onmusic as late as 1698. Moreover, the Shams al-Aswat includes someof the most original descriptions of current musical practice in theIndo-Persian corpus. Most importantly, however, an early eighteenth-century treatise names Ras Baras Khan as the greatest performingmusician of his generation.142 It does not necessarily follow thatAurangzeb himself reverted to his earlier engagement with live music.However, it does show that he consented to its perpetuation. TheShams al-Aswat demonstrates not only that some kalawants remainedunder Aurangzeb’s patronage throughout his reign, but that they werepermitted to continue performing.

Secondly, the scenario of a mass departure from the imperialcourt is predicated on Bakhtawar Khan’s suggestion that Aurangzebencouraged his companions and servants to renounce music. However,a letter to his son Muhammad A‘zam Shah dated c.1690 demonstratesthat, at least in private, the exact opposite was the case. In praising

140 Ras Baras Khan, Shams al-Aswat SJ, f. 3b.141 Ibid., ff. 11a-12a. According to Faqirullah, the presence of the emperor’s name

in the preface of a treatise signified that he was not just the patron in name, but thathe had seen the finished product and approved it; see Rag Darpan (1996), p. 225.

142 Anonymous, Risala dar Tal, f. 59a; also Ras Baras Khan, Shams al-Aswat EUL,f. 1b.

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his own father’s way of life, Aurangzeb wrote:

After sunset he retired from the ‘Divan-i-Am’, offered evening prayers and(then) entered his special private chamber. There were present sweet-tongued historians, eloquent story-tellers, sweet-voiced musicians [qawwalan-i khush al-han]. . .In short, His Majesty passed, till midnight, the hours of dayand night, in this manner, and (thus) did justice to life and sovereignty. As(my) paternal love regarding (my) son is from the heart (i.e. true) and notfrom the pen (i.e. false), I was obliged to write and inform (my) dear son whatwas good and valuable.143

This does not necessarily imply that Aurangzeb himself continuedto listen to performances by qawwals, who were the pre-eminentexponents of khayal at this time.144 Nevertheless, it conclusivelydemonstrates contrary to expectation that he considered thepatronage and performance of music, at least in relation to theqawwals, to be essentially ‘good and valuable’. In this letter he stronglyrecommends Shah Jahan’s practice to his son. It is impossible to argueon this basis that Aurangzeb actively discouraged his subjects fromlistening to music. It is equally difficult to believe that he wouldhave forbidden the qawwals who remained under his patronage fromperforming. The story of the banning of music therefore seems to bewrong about both the kalawants and the qawwals.

The Two Faces of Aurangzeb

These final and most authoritative clues to what happened to music inAurangzeb’s reign not only refute the received view of a universal ban,but also seem to conflict with the ‘authorised’ version of a personalrenunciation. Listening only to the voices of the actors in the drama,it would be possible to conclude that even the stories of Aurangzeb’spersonal abstinence from music have been exaggerated for politicalreasons. It could be argued that Aurangzeb never requested hismusicians to stop playing in his presence, or if he did, the storiesrefer to a temporary situation or a trivial incident. However, instead,I would propose that the discrepancies between the constructed

143 Aurangzeb, Ruka‘at-i ‘Alamgiri (1972), p. 19; Faqirullah, Rag Darpan (1996),p. xli.

144 Brown, ‘Origins and development of khayal’, (forthcoming (b)). This passage hasno specific religious connotations, and I have therefore taken it to include the rangeof music performed by qawwals.

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historical narratives, and Aurangzeb’s private letters and the writingsof his musicians, represent the difference between Aurangzeb’s publicpersona, deliberately constructed to serve political ends, and hisprivate persona, a more nuanced figure. The face Aurangzeb neededto show the world was clear-cut; pious but reasonable, someone whosecommitment to the strictures of Islamic orthodoxy was demonstratedin his personal renunciation of music, which was pursued with integrityand fairness to those affected. Privately, however, his beliefs werealtogether less black and white. I would argue it is possible to reconcilethe two faces of Aurangzeb. To do so, however, we need to return toHira Bai.

Hira Bai Zainabadi: an Epilogue

With the substantial support of later evidence, Aurangzeb’sexperience with Hira Bai demonstrates that he fundamentally enjoyedmusic. But it also showed him how much power music had to leadhim astray, to make him lose control over his emotions and hisbody.145 The power of music to move the emotions and to heal thebody is extensively addressed in the Indo-Persian treatises. Accordingto Muzaffar Husain, physician to Muhammad Shah, if the sick areoccupied with singing from morning until night, they find relief fromsorrow, sickness, disease and the burden of troubles.146 This is partiallyto do with the beneficial physical effects of the expulsion of breath fromthe body that accompanies the act of singing. However, it is mainlyrelated to the fact that music touches the human soul and producesbeneficial emotions that give physical strength to the weak.147 Musicwas believed to arouse tranquillity, melancholy, longing, grief, regret,attachment and desire in the heart of the listener. It was also ableto produce truth, discernment, and even enlightenment in the seekerof righteousness. However, above all, music was believed to induceprofound feelings of joy and love, human as well as divine.148 Theemotional power of music made it highly controversial in Islamic

145 Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma’asir al-Umara’ (1999), p. 806.146 Also Ras Baras Khan, Shams al-Aswat SJ, f. 8b.147 Muzaffar Husayn, Jam-i Jahan-numa, ff. 230a-1a.148 Mirza Khan, Tohfat al-Hind KB, f. 303b; Ras Baras Khan, Shams al-Aswat SJ, f.

8b; Mirza Bedil, Kulliyat-i Bidil, f. 56a; Qazi Hasan, Sarud al-Bahr, f. 2b.

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writings, and music was portrayed as potentially having the powerto make a man lose control. In seventeenth-century Indo-Persiantexts, the power of women and music to destroy men’s self-controland political power was taken for granted, and was transformedinto cautionary tales about the dangers of falling in love with acourtesan.149 It is this trope that haunts the story of Aurangzeb andHira Bai.

Aurangzeb’s doomed relationship with Hira Bai did not turn himagainst music. However, his desperate attraction to her did act asa warning to him. In order for a sincerely religious man to regaincontrol over himself, the orthodox solution was clear: as ‘Abdul HaqqDehlavi so succinctly put it, ‘Some have said that listening to musicincreases passion. The way of piety is not to listen to it’.150 Findingvisible ways to maintain his integrity as a pious Muslim was critical toAurangzeb in the first part of his reign, because his dubious claims ofpolitical legitimacy relied on his adherence to religious orthodoxy.151

Moreover, in Mughal male society at this time, the ability to controlone’s passions was not just a religious imperative, but was central tothe maintenance of princely adab, or mirza’i. There were significantconnections between the realms of religion and princely etiquette.O’Hanlon notes that elite male adab in Mughal India “shared much incommon with sufi spirituality, and many sufi mystics were known fortheir qualities of mirza’i’.152

According to O’Hanlon, elite manliness in Aurangzeb’s court wassignified and maintained by a careful disciplining of the body:

A man’s spiritual and emotional states were most powerfully affected bytechniques of the body, and by careful control of his physical environment.But this was now a much more individuated body, marked out as such bycarefully chosen forms of knowledge and consumption, and deployed moreself-consciously as an instrument to perfect the soul.153

It is striking, therefore, that Faqirullah should choose to describeAurangzeb in these very terms: as a Sufi whose discipline was bodily to

149 Brown, ‘Reading Indian music’ (2000), p. 18 and ‘If music be the food of love(forthcoming (a)).

150 ‘Abdul Haqq Dehlavi, Risala-i Talisa-i Qur’ us-Sama‘, f. 62b.151 Richards, Mughal empire (1993), p. 172; Chandra, ‘Cultural and political role’

(1986–7), pp. 89–90.152 O’Hanlon, ‘Manliness and imperial service’ (1999), p. 71.153 Ibid., p. 85.

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perform his adab as emperor, in order to attain spiritual perfection:

He wears the crown to shake off the shackles (as a Sufi does in sheer ecstasy);and he sits on the throne to discipline his soul (as again a Sufi does in Chilla:forty days’ course of self-purification).154

In this way Mughal ideals of manliness were grafted onto Islamicnotions of piety to determine how Aurangzeb displayed himselfpublicly as a good Muslim ruler. The mastery of princely self-disciplineincluded the negotiation of highly detailed rules for the patronage ofmusic.155 These established a repertoire of behaviours within definedlimits of decency and deviance, between which a patron could charthis own course according to his personal ideology. In order to maintainhis integrity as an orthodox Muslim, Aurangzeb had to discipline hispassions and behaviour to conform to his chosen ideology. Because hispublic piety helped maintain his sometimes fragile hold on power, andbecause music had in the past dramatically affected his self-control,the demands of his public persona now required Aurangzeb to abstainfrom music.

I am not suggesting that Aurangzeb’s renunciation of music wascynical and insincere, designed purely for public consumption. Rather,much as heavy drinkers might renounce alcohol in order to live a lifeconsistent with their private beliefs and achieve their public ambitions,Aurangzeb may have felt that giving up music was a sacrifice worthmaking to maintain his public piety and therefore his political power.It is unlikely that Aurangzeb hypocritically listened to music in privatewhile at the same time maintaining public abstinence. Even Manuccibelieved that Aurangzeb was consistent in matters of practical piety,such as abstaining from alcohol.156 Whether at some stage later inhis reign Aurangzeb began to listen to his musicians again is notclear; the increasingly liberal religious ideology Chandra notes in thelatter half of his reign might suggest an accompanying relaxationof his stance on music.157 It may be that he simply continued toallow the musicians in his service to pursue their vocations, privatelyacknowledging to his companions and children the value of listening tomusic. No matter how long Aurangzeb maintained his abstinence frommusic, all the evidence suggests that his private attitudes were more

154 Faqirullah, Rag Darpan (1996), p. 217.155 See Brown, ‘Hindustani music’ (2003), pp. 118–76 and ‘If music be the food of

love’ (forthcoming (a)).156 Manucci, Storia (1907), vol. ii p. 5.157 Chandra, ‘Cultural and political role’ (1986), pp. 98–9, 101.

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supportive of musical practice than his public persona implies, and thathe acquiesced in the continuance of aristocratic patronage outside hisdarbar. In any case, it seems most likely he would have continued tosustain in public the benignly neutral stance towards music describedin the Mir’at-i ‘Alam and the Ma’asir-i ‘Alamgiri throughout his reign.

Conclusions

In this discussion of Aurangzeb’s policy towards music, I have beenseeking to establish the extent and effectiveness of his ban onmusic, and the real effects of his policy on musical life. Manuccistates that Aurangzeb banished all music from his empire, destroyinginstruments and livelihoods and creating great distress, only to havehis policy undermined by the subversive activities of his amirs. KhafiKhan argues that the ban was restricted to the top classical musiciansin the imperial court and had much less severe consequences forthem, after which music disappears from his narrative as if Aurangzebreally did kill rag. Not only do the two sources of the burial storycontradict each other, but Manucci contradicts himself, the evidence ofother Indo-Persian and European sources substantially refutes KhafiKhan and Manucci, and their credibility is further undermined byexaggeration, plagiarism, and their antagonism towards the emperor.The majority of scholars nevertheless read them uncritically, andthen have immense trouble piecing together what are, after all, twoentirely different jigsaws. When Aurangzeb himself suggests thatlistening to the singing of qawwals is ‘good and valuable’, and a leadingkalawant devotes three pages of his musical treatise to praising hisimperial patron, the contradictions between a rather bewilderingarray of primary sources become overwhelming. They only begin tofall into place once we come to the conclusion that there was no banat all, unless it was so brief as to be meaningless. Instead, I haveargued that for reasons of personal religious integrity, Aurangzebfelt it necessary to abstain from an activity that he enjoyed, whilemaintaining an attitude of benign neutrality towards music in public,and of impersonal support in private. As a result, his withdrawal fromactive engagement with music had no negative effects on musical lifeduring his reign. The real impact of Aurangzeb’s entirely personal,voluntary renunciation of music was symbolic.

This is why the persuasive myth of the burial of music endures as‘history’ amongst musicologists, historians, journalists, and men andwomen on the street. The story of the ban and burial is a ‘musical

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parable’158 of the supposedly devastating effects of Aurangzeb’sIslamic orthodoxy on the liberal and tolerant culture of India. It istransformed into a cautionary tale to remind readers of the dangers ofallowing regimes like the Taliban to go unchecked.159 Or it becomes aconvenient brick to be used in the construction of a national identityon the ruins of a mosque. It has credibility and power because thereis a grain of truth in it. Although the widely believed anecdoteof Aurangzeb’s becoming or pretending to be a religious asceticin his youth is unlikely to be true,160 his strictness in the area ofpersonal piety is beyond question. From this, it has often been arguedthat his personal devotion to Islam was manifested in the publicarena in an increasing Islamisation of the state that, when coupledwith over-centralisation, led to widespread repression of the non-Muslim majority.161 This in turn began a vicious circle of acts ofresistance by various Hindu groups, followed by further repressiveand iconoclastic measures, which eventually led to the breakdownof the empire.162 Lists of Aurangzeb’s offences are often musteredfrom older secondary sources, such as Jadunath Sarkar and Sri RamSharma,163 to demonstrate the extent of his religious obsession. It isin this context that the story of the burial of music is usually retold asevidence that:

the goal of the new Islamic ideologies were simply defined: the Mughal Empiremust become a Muslim state governed by the precepts of the Sharia for thebenefit of the Indian Muslim community. The regime would make everypossible effort to encourage conversion of the infidel population.164

In this way, the banning of music is transformed into a cultural indic-ator of the intolerant and repressive nature of Aurangzeb’s regime.

How then should our understanding of the nature of the Mughalstate be affected by the fact that the ban never occurred? Firstly,it indicates that the empire was less centralised and its culturallife less dictated by the predilections of the emperor than has oftenbeen suggested. As Alam and Subrahmanyam have pointed out, this

158 Delvoye, ‘Indo-Persian literature’ (1994), p. 118.159 Nazir Jairazbhoy, ‘Musical perspectives on music and September 11’ (2001).160 e.g. Ahmad, Studies in Islamic culture (1964), p. 197; see also Sarkar, History of

Aurangzib (1912–26), p. 78.161 Richards, Mughal empire (1993), pp. 171–5.162 Pearson, ‘Shivaji’ (1976), p. 221.163 Sharma, Religious policy of the Mughal Emperors (1940).164 Richards, Mughal empire (1993), p. 171.

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perception of Aurangzeb’s regime is based on the idea that historyis shaped solely by powerful individuals whose personality flaws havethe potential to destroy civilisations.165 Not only is this simplistic,the evidence I have found that Aurangzeb’s personal religious viewsdid not necessarily interfere with his public policies also contradictsit. My understanding of Aurangzeb’s laissez-faire relationship with hisnobles on the issue of musical patronage particularly militates againstStephen Blake’s hyper-centralised166 understanding of the Mughalstate as a ‘patrimonial-bureaucratic empire’. Blake argues that:

the patrimonial ruler tried to assimilate state to household: he attemptedto administer, control, and finance the entire realm as if it were part ofhis own private domain. . .the patrimonial-bureaucratic emperor dominatedthe social, economic, and cultural life of the city. . .the sovereign city was anenormously extended patriarchal household, the imperial palace-fortress writlarge. . .The emperor intended that his command of the city. . .be symbolicand paradigmatic of the control he and his subordinates exerted over theempire.167

In other words, Aurangzeb’s personal stance on music was the culturalpolicy of the empire, and therefore must have precipitated a masswithdrawal of musical patronage from the royal princes right downto the small householder on the imperial border. It would alsohave signified the immediate application of a stricter Islamic agendathroughout the empire. However, the musical evidence suggests thatAurangzeb’s relationship with his subjects was looser than this. He didnot impose his stance on anyone, and his personal abstinence had littleeffect on musical patronage or practice. This evidence opposes Blake’sthesis, and suggests that not only did Aurangzeb abdicate control overcultural life (and there is no evidence he ever possessed it), in the caseof music the emperor’s personal ideology was not synonymous withMughal cultural policy.

More importantly, though, the fact that Aurangzeb did not order auniversal ban on music lends support to the idea that his regime wasless intolerant and repressive than has been widely believed in the past.Many accounts of Aurangzeb’s architectural iconoclasm have recentlycome under attack. As is the case with the burial story, they are oftenbased on uncritical readings of primary sources, particularly panegyricIndo-Persian descriptions in Elliott and Dowson’s controversial

165 Alam and Subrahmanyam, Mughal state (1998), p. 56.166 See Subrahmanyam, ‘Mughal state’ (1992).167 Blake, Shahjahanabad (1993), pp. xii-iii.

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English translation.168 Catherine Asher points out that many of thestories of Aurangzeb’s wanton destruction of Hindu temples andmonuments are wrongly ascribed to religious zeal, and are sometimesfalse. She provides a number of examples to argue that templeswere nearly always destroyed for political and not religious reasonsas a punishment for rebellion, and that Hindus who remained loyalwere rewarded.169 Aziz Ahmad demonstrates that the destruction ofreligious sites as a political act was a long-established practice amongstHindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike170 and was often perpetrated againstco-religionists.171 Citing Aurangzeb’s widely alleged destruction of thecaves at Ellora as one example of false attribution, Asher notes that, onthe contrary, he praised them in his own writings and attributed themto the work of Allah. Moreover, she states that ‘decrees (farman) testifythat imperial support was provided for temples throughout Aurang-zeb’s reign’.172 Barbara Metcalf points out that Aurangzeb built farmore temples than he destroyed.173 Furthermore, Jalaluddin providesincontrovertible evidence, in the way of farmans, of tax-free grants Aur-angzeb bestowed on Hindu temples as late as 1691, notably those ofthe Jangam Bari Math at Benares and Balaji’s temple at Chitrakoot.174

The contents of the latter farman deserve to be noted for the record.175

168 Metcalf, ‘Too little and too much’ (1995), p. 954. The extracts published byElliott and Dowson were deliberately chosen because they purported to demonstrateMughal ‘intolerance’ compared with enlightened British rule (p. 954). Suchinterpretations ignore the fact that the language of jihad and the textual ‘evidence’of discriminatory laws and destruction of infidel property may be nothing more thanhyperbole employed to portray the Emperor as a good Muslim (p. 957), or to win theallegiance of a recalcitrant Muslim community (Chandra, ‘Cultural and political role’(1986), pp. 89–90). According to Metcalf, ‘in the defeat of Vijayanagar in 1556, theQutb Shahi ruler himself claimed that he established a mosque on the remains of atemple. Yet inscriptions show that five years later that same Qutb Shahi was grantingvillages to support the same temple!’ (Metcalf, ‘Too little and too much’ (1995), p.95).

169 Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (1992), p. 254.170 Ahmad, Studies in Islamic culture (1964), p. 89.171 Metcalf, ‘Too little and too much’ (1995), p. 958.172 Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (1992), pp. 254–5.173 Metcalf, ‘Too little and too much’ (1995), p. 958.174 Jalaluddin, ‘Some important farmans’ (1978), pp. 44–7.175 ‘The famous temple of Balaji had got the reverence of Emperor Aurangzeb who,

in due recognition of the religious sanctity of the place, issued a farman in A.D. 1691conferring a big grant on its Mahant Balak Das Nirvani. The grant comprises of eightvillages as mu‘afi and 330 bighas, situated in Sarkar (District) Kalinjar Suba Allahabad,for the purpose of meeting the expenses of ‘Puja and Bhog’ of Thakur Balaji. . .All theaforesaid grants have been allowed to be enjoyed generation after generation and notax whatsoever was allowed to be realised from the income of the said grants. The

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Thus, the overwhelming evidence against a ban on musical practicein Aurangzeb’s reign suggests that the nature of his state was lessorthodox, tyrannical and centralised than has previously been thought.The fact that Aurangzeb’s iconoclasm did not translate into a ban onmusic, however, means that the other question I raised in relationto the Taliban—what happens to a musical culture and the peopleinvolved in it when the most important thing about it is that it hasbeen suppressed?—cannot be answered with reference to Aurangzeb.In this case parallels between him and Oliver Cromwell become morerelevant. In terms of seventeenth-century European and particularlyEnglish portrayals of Aurangzeb, it is not insignificant that Cromwelldied in the same year that Aurangzeb usurped the throne, nor thatManucci spent his formative years under the protection of an escapingRoyalist. Furthermore, modern analogies between the two rulerswere first drawn by Sri Ram Sharma and Jadunath Sarkar,176 whoseworks have proved perhaps the most influential studies of Aurangzeb’sreligious policies to date. Antonia Fraser points out that as Puritans,Cromwell’s soldiers were particularly vulnerable to accusations oficonoclasm, merited or unmerited, by Royalist propagandists:

From. . .sparse stories have sprung the much more formidable body of legendsand folklore on the subject which surround and tarnish his name. . .Very manyof the pieces of vandalism now popularly attributed to Oliver Cromwell,whether castles knocked down, churches defiled, statues broken, are onexamination so ludicrously misdated or occur in areas so far from any pointhe personally visited as to be hardly worth repetition.177

This statement applies equally to the charge of musical iconoclasm sooften levelled at Aurangzeb. It is high time the story of the burial ofmusic was finally laid to rest.

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