After more than a decade of political insecurity at the Mughal court, the relative stability of the first twenty years of emperor Muhammad Shah’s reign (1719–48) ushered in a significant revival of the arts. But the jostling for supremacy had also raised up a usurper musical dynasty headed by the great Ni‘amat Khan ‘Sadarang’ and his nephew, Firoz Khan ‘Adarang’.
Already all the seeds of my story are sown here: political upheaval, leading to social diversification, leading to stylistic innovation. For the musical rivalry at Muhammad Shah’s court was just the harbinger of a more tumultuous drama. What happened to Delhi’s musicians is documented in a genre new to writing on music at this time: the biographical compendium or tazkira. I will be looking at musicians’ biographies (1739–1847) as both a product of upheaval, dispersal, diversification, and innovation; and as a record of these things. Both views give us unusual access to the history of elite artisans on the move in late Mughal and early colonial India.
