The Thaat System

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According to Vishnu Narayan Bhaatkhande (1860-1936), one of the most influential musicologists in the field of North Indian classical music in the twentieth century, each one of the several traditional Raags is based on, or is a variation of, ten basic thaats, or musical scales or frameworks.

Rules for these Thaats:

1. A thaat must have seven notes out of the twelve notes [7 shuddh, 4 komal (Re, Ga, Dha, Ni), and 1 teevra (Ma)], placed in an ascending order [Aarohi].
2. Both the forms of the notes can be used.
3. Thaats are not sung but the Raagas produced from the Thaats are sung.
4. Thaats are named after the most popular Raag of that Thaat.

Circle of Thaats [Image Link]

Here is an excellent resource: A Modern Introduction to Music – 17 and some excerpts from it:

1. There are two ways to pick the svar corresponding to Re (R or r). There are also two ways to pick the svar corresponding to Ga (G or g). Now you can convince yourself that there are 2 x 2 = 4 ways to choose the svars corresponding to the combinations of Re and Ga, i.e., RG, Rg, rG, rg.
2. By extending this logic we would find that because there are at least 5 svars with two choices each, the total number of combinations we can derive is 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32.
3. What Pandit Bhaatkande did was to reduce this exhaustive set of 32 to a more limited set of 10 parent families that in his judgment included the majority of the popular ragas in the Hindustani tradition.
4. These are the famous 10 thaats of Hindustani classical music and while there is a continuing discussion of the limitations of this scheme, no satisfactory replacement has yet been proposed.
5. Each thaat represents a parent family in which the raagas included share a family resemblance.
6. In the circle of thaats above, our starting point = Kalyan Thaat [12 o’clock position with all tivra swaras – RGMDN [the normal variants are being called teevra because their softer versions are komal!] and concluding point = Bhairavi Thaat [its mirror image, 6 o’clock position with all komal swaras – rgmdn].
7. Moving anti-clockwise from Kalyan, we change tivra swars to komal swaras, in turn, to get the following three thaats before we arrive at Bhairavi thaat where all svars become komal.
   • Marwa [rGMDN];
   • Poorvi [rGMdN];
   • Todi [rgMdN].
8. Moving clockwise from Kalyan, we change tivra svars to komal svars, in turn, to get the following four thaats (ignore Bhairav thaat for the moment) before we again get to Bhairavi thaat where all svars become komal.
   • Bilawal [RGmDN];
   • Khamaj [RGmDn];
   • Kafi [RgmDn];
   • Asavari [Rgmdn].
9. Now note the following:
   • In the anti-clockwise direction, Ma and Ni remain tivra in all three thaats. The variation comes from transformations in Re, Ga and Dha.
   • In the clockwise direction, Re remains tivra and Ma remains komal in all four thaats. The variation comes from transformations in Ga, Dha and Ni.
10. Bhairav thaat [rGmdN] is an outlier in this schema – it does not really fall neatly on either side between Kalyan and Bhairavi thaats.
11. Eight thaats pair up in four mirror images of each other (the svar that is tivra in one is komal in the other):
    • Kalyan [RGMDN] and Bhairavi [rgmdn];
    • Marwa [rGMDN] and Asavari [Rgmdn];
    • Poorvi [rGMdN] and Kafi [RgmDn];
    • Todi [rgMdN] and Khamaj [RGmDn].
12. Bilawal [RGmDn] and Bhairav [rGmDN] are orphans; they are unpaired thaats.
13. This schema is unsymmetrical and there must be a way to restore symmetry to it.
    • We could either add two new thaats, [rgMdn] and [RgMDn], to create pairs for Bilawal and Bhairav and get to 12, a number much more amenable to symmetrical divisions.
    • Or we could drop the existing Bhairav and create a new thaat [rGMdN].

Shortcomings & Ambiguities of the Thaat System:

1. The Thaat System is unable to accommodate many important raags satisfactorily and unambiguously such as:
   • Patdeep (S R G M P D N),
   • Ahir bhairav (S R G M P D N)
   • Madhuvanti (S R G M sharp P D N)
   • Similarly, Raag Charukeshi [SRGmPdn] cannot be placed unambiguously in any thaat. One has to listen to its movements before assigning it to one family or another.
2. It also finds it hard to group raags with both varieties of either Re, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni.
3. Many raags belonging to different thaats are historically and musically related (e.g., raag Bilaskhani Todi is classified in Bhairavi thaat & raag Miyan ki Todi in Todi thaat).
4. Further, hexatonic and pentatonic raags cannot be classified in ten thaats since missing notes make the classification ambiguous.
5. For these and other reasons, many musicians have challenged Bhaatkhande’s thaat system.
6. Omkarnath Thakur (1897-1967), one of the century’s influential music theoreticians and famous khayal singers, rejected the idea of classifying raags under scale types.
7. But no musicologist so far been able to come up with a raag classification system accepted as widely popular as Bhaatkhande’s.
8. Raags with different scales may share a number of characteristic melodic features and motifs & musicians use the term “ang” (part) for them. Well-known examples are the Kanada ang (G M R), Malhar ang (M \ R, R / P, N \ P), Bhairav ang (M G \ R — S), and Todi ang (R / G- \ R — S). Bilaval, Kalyan and Sarang angs more difficult to define.

The common Raagas [a-z] in
each of the 10 basic thaats
are as follows:

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1. Bilaval Thaat:
Notes = S R G m P D N
[Most basic – all svaras shuddh / in natural scale].

1. Alhaiya Bilaval
2. Bihag
3. Bilaval & its Prakars
4. Deepak (Bilawal Thaat)
5. Deskar
6. Durga (Bilaval)
7. Gunakali (Bilawal thaat)
8. Hamir Bilawal
9. Hamsadhwani
10. Hemkalyan
11. Kaushik Dhwani
12. Lachcha Sakh
13. Nat Bihag
14. Nat Bilawal
15. Pat Manjari (Bilawal)
16. Shankara
17. Shuddha Malhar (Bilawal thaat)
18. Sukhiya

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2. Khamaj Thaat:
Notes = S R G m P D n
[Replace N of Bilawal thaat with n]

1. Bihari
2. Des
3. Deepak
4. Gaud Malhar
5. Gawati
6. Gorakh Kalyan
7. Jaijaiwanti
8. Jhinjhoti
9. Jog
10. Kamboji
11. Khamaj
12. Khambavati / Rageshree
13. Narayani
14. Sorath
15. Tilak Kamod
16. Tilang

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3. Kafi Thaat:
Notes = S R g m P D n
[Replace G of Khamaj thaat with g]

1. Abhogi 
2. Bageshree
3. Bahar
4. Barva
5. Bhimpalasi
6. Brindavani Sarang
7. Chandrakauns
8. Dhanashree
9. Dhani
10. Gara
11. Gaud
12. Hamskinkini
13. Kafi
14. Malgunji
15. Miyaan ki Malhar
16. Megh Malhar
17. Nayaki Kanhada
18. Palasi
19. Patdeep
20. Pat Manjari (Kafi)
21. Piloo
22. Pradeepki
23. Shahana
24. Shuddh Sarang
25. Sindhoora / Saindhavi
26. Sri Ranjani

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4. Asavari Thaat:
Notes = S R g m P d n
[Replace D of Kafi thaat with d]

1. Adana
2. Asavari
3. Jogi Asavari
4. Darbari Kanhada
5. Desi
6. Dev Gandhar
7. Gopika Basant
8. Jangula (Asavari ang)
9. Jaunpuri
10. Jogiya Asavari
11. Kaunsi Kanhada
12. Khat
13. Komal Desi
14. Sindhura Asavari
15. Zeelaf (Asavari Ang)

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5. Bhairavi Thaat:
Notes = S r g m P d n
[All komal svaras, r g d n]

1. Bhairavi
2. Bhupali Todi
3. Bilaskhani Todi
4. Dhanashri (Bhairavi aang)
5. Komal Rishabh Asavari
6. Malkauns
7. Motaki
8. Shuddha Bhairavi
9. Sindhu Bhairavi
10. Uttari Gunkali

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6. Bhairav Thaat:
Notes = S r G m P d N
[Komal r and d, bhairavi
thaat minus komal g & n!]

1. Ahir Bhairav
2. Bairagi
3. Basant Mukhari
4. Bhairav
5. Bibhas or Vibhas [when rendered with d falls under Bhairav]
6. Devranjani
7. Gouri (Bhairav Ang)
8. Gunkali
9. Jangula
10. Jogiya
11. Kalingada
12. Lalit Pancham
13. Lalita Gauri (Bhairava ang)
14. Megh Ranjani
15. Nat Bhairav
16. Patmanjiri (Bhairav)
17. Ramkali
18. Sourashtra Tank
19. Zeelaf (Bhairav ang)

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7. Kalyan Thaat:
Notes = S R G M P D N
[Replace m of Bilaval thaat with M]

1. Bhoopali or Bhoop / Bhoop Kalyan
2. Chandini Kedar
3. Chandrakant
4. Chhayanat
5. Gaud Sarang
6. Hameer
7. Hem Kalyan
8. Kamod
9. Kedar
10. Malasri
11. Nand
12. Nand Kalyan
13. Puriya Kalyan
14. Shuddha Kalyan 
15. Shyam Kalyan
16. Yaman
17. Yaman Kalyan

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8. Marwa Thaat:
Notes = S r G M P D N
[Replace R of Kalyan thaat with r]

1. Baradi
2. Bhankar
3. Bhatiyaar
4. Bhinna Shadaj
5. Bibhas or Vibhas
6. Jait
7. Lalit [when rendered with D]
8. Lalita Gauri
9. Malati Basant
10. Maligaura
11. Marva
12. Pancham
13. Pooriya
14. Pooriya Kalyan
15. Purva
16. Sajhgiri
17. Sohini
18. Vihang (Jaipur)

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9. Poorvi Thaat:
Notes = S r G M P d N
[Replace D of Marwa thaat with d]

1. Baradi (Poorvi)
2. Basant
3. Bibhas
4. Deepak
5. Dhaval Shree (Jaipur)
6. Gauri
7. Hamsnarayani
8. Jaitsree
9. Lalit (Din Ki Poorya)
10. Lalit [r and d are Komal, M + m, P not used, all other notes are shuddh
11. Malavi
12. Manohar
13. Paraj
14. Poorvi
15. Pooriya Dhanashri
16. Reva
17. Shree
18. Shuddh Basant ~ Pancham
19. Tanki
20. Triveni

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10. Todi Thaat:
Notes = S r g M P d N
[Replace G of Poorvi thaat with g]

1. Bilaskhani Todi
2. Dev Gandhar (Todi Ang)
3. Gujari / Gurjari / Gujri Todi
4. Lilavati
5. Madhuvanti
6. Todi or Miyaan ki Todi & its Prakaars [Variants]
7. Multani

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More on Indian Classical Music:
The Alchemy of Indian Classical Music

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