Naubat Khan (also known as Ali Khan Karori) was an Indian classical music composer, musician and instrumentalist who was made a Mansabdar by Mughal Emperor
Akbar. He is known today for his skills with the ''
rudra veena
The ''Rudra veena'' ( sa, रुद्र वीणा) (also spelled ''Rudraveena'' or ''Rudra vina'')—also called ''Bīn'' in North India—is a large plucked string instrument used in Hindustani Music, especially dhrupad. It is one of the m ...
'' or ''bīn'', which he is shown playing in paintings by Mughal court artists.Naubat Khan was the contemporary and son in law of legendary
Tansen
Tansen ( – 26 April 1589), also referred to and commonly known as Sangeet Samrat () , was a Hindustani classical musician. Born in a Hindu Gaur Brahmin family, he learnt and perfected his art in the northwest region of modern Madhya Pr ...
.
Early life and background
Naubat Khan was the grandson of Raja
Samokhan Singh of
Kishangarh
Kishangarh is a city and a Municipal Council in Ajmer district in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
History
Kishangarh State was founded by the Jodhpur prince Kishan Singh in 1609. Prior to the rule of Kishan Singh this area was ruled by Ra ...
.
Samokhan Singh, a
Jodhpur
Jodhpur (; ) is the second-largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan and officially the second metropolitan city of the state. It was formerly the seat of the princely state of Jodhpur State. Jodhpur was historically the capital of the ...
prince, was himself a great veena player of his time.
As the Mughal Emperor
Akbar fought his wars of conquest in India, he fought against Raja
Samokhan Singh. Singh was defeated in the battle and his grandson Misri Singh (Naubat Khan) was kept under house arrest. Misri Singh later accepted Islam
and was named Ali. He was trained under
Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana, the son of
Bairam Khan to get an understanding of the Mughal court procedures. Ali was given the title of Khan by Mughal Emperor
Akbar, and the post of ''Karori'', i.e. Collector of revenue. He was later given the prestigious position of the ''darogha'' of the Naqqar Khana. As mentioned in
Tuzk-e-Jahangiri
''Tuzuk-e-Jahangiri'' or ''Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri'' ( fa, ) or Jahangir-nama ( fa, ) is the autobiography of Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1569–1627). Also referred to as ''Jahangirnama'', the ''Tuzk-e-Jahangiri'' is written in Persian, and follows th ...
, Ali Khan Karori was given the title of ''Naubat Khan'' and promoted to the rank of 500 personnel and 200 horse on 9 July 1607 (Gregorian), or 14 Rabi ul Awwal 1016 (
Hijri), during Jahangir's visit to Kabul.
Marriage
Mughal Emperor
Akbar himself arranged the marriage of Naubat Khan to Tansen's daughter, Saraswati. Saraswati accepted Islam and was named Hussaini. They had a son named Lal Khan. Lal Khan was the son-in-law of Tansen's son Bilas Khan.
Lal Khan would become the chief musician of Emperor
Shahjahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
. Shahajahan conferred on him the title of
Gunsamundra.
[
]
Subject of individual portrait
Only highly ranked figures of the court enjoyed the privilege of being painted alone or within an assembly by the painters of the court and Naubat Khan is one of the rare musicians – along with the illustrious singer-composer Tansen – to have been the subject of an individual portrait. Both Tansen and Naubat Khan were individually immortalized by artists of the Imperial atelier during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar.
A well-known portrait of Naubat Khan painted during Akbar's reign and attributed to the artist Mansur, is held in the British Museum. Another tinted drawing of him is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and yet another from the Edwin Binney 3rd Collection is presently held in the San Diego Museum of Art.
In a fourth portrait of Naubat Khan, part of a Double Sided Muraqqa Folio, Naubat Khan is shown playing a rudra vina, or bin, with its large round orange gourds, wearing an Akbar period white muslin chakdar (four pointed) jama with a small white kulhadar (an early Akbar-style turban) on his head. The reverse side of the image has calligraphic ''nasta'liq'' script. It contains a work of poetry (possibly Sufi poetry
Sufi literature consists of works in various languages that express and advocate the ideas of Sufism.
Sufism had an important influence on medieval literature, especially poetry, that was written in Arabic, Persian, Turkic and Urdu. Sufi doctr ...
), reading:
"chand gu'i ze koja'i o koja
az nahan-khaneh-ye tajridam o az deyr fana
to jadal mi-koni amma che-koni chun na-koni
goft haqq dar haqq-e to akthar-e shay' jadala".
Translation:
"How many times will you ask: Where are you? Where are you? Where?
I am from the closet of separation and from the transitory world.
You dispute, but what will you achieve if you do not?
He said: Truth, you will always be the cause of disagreement".
File:Akbar empfängt Husayn Quli Khan mit Gefangenen aus Gujarat.jpg, Hussain Quli presents prisoners of war to Akbar, a view of the bin player Naubat Khan (in white dress holding Rudra Vina).Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
U.K.
File:Naubat Khan Kalawant inscribed.Museum of Fine Arts Boston.jpg, India, Mughal period. Naubat Khan the Vina Player, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.San Diego Museum of Art
The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Galler ...
, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection.
Beenkar dynasty
Naubat Khan was the founder of the ''beenkar'' or ''binkar'' dynasty of India. His direct descendants commanded respect in musical circles for several centuries. Notable members of this family are
* Lal Khan Gunsamundra (chief musician of Shahjahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
, son-in-law of Tansen's son Bilas Khan
Bilaskhani Todi is a Hindustani classical raga. It is a blend of the ragas Asavari and Todi, and has a close affinity with Komal Rishabh Asavari.
Theory
The Hindustani classical raga Bilaskhani Todi is an example of the flaws of the Bhatkhand ...
)Shahjahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
and Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb).
* Bisram Khan (son of Lal Khan Gunsamundra, One of the Chief musicians at the court of Mughal Emperor Shahjahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
and Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb).
* Bhupat Khan
* Sadarang (chief musician of Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah
Mirza Nasir-ud-Din Muḥammad Shah (born Roshan Akhtar; 7 August 1702 – 26 April 1748) was the 13th Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1719 to 1748. He was son of Khujista Akhtar, the fourth son of Bahadur Shah I. After being chosen by the ...
)
* Adarang
* Sidhar KhanVishnu Narayan Bhatkhande
Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (10 August 1860 – 19 September 1936) was an Indian musicologist who wrote the first modern treatise on Hindustani classical music, an art which had been propagated for centuries mostly through oral traditions. ...
)
* Dabir Khan
See also
*Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music is the classical music of northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. It may also be called North Indian classical music or, in Hindustani, ''shastriya sangeet'' (). It is played in instruments like the violin, si ...
* Sadarang
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Naubat
Indian male classical musicians
Mughal nobility
Akbar
Indian Shia Muslims
Year of birth missing
Year of death missing