An outdoor band of West and Central Asia, South Asia, Malaysia and Sumatra (nobat), used for royal, ceremonial, civic or military music. Its typical instrumentation includes oboes, horns or trumpets, and drums, and sometimes cymbals. Naqqārakhāna means ‘naqqāra house’, the large kettledrum (naqqāra) being often housed in a pavilion at the gateway of palaces, Muslim shrines or Hindu temples. Its origins appear to lie in Iran and Central Asia, and its specific role is to play at sunrise, sunset and certain other times of day, a tradition which may point to an early connection with Zoroastrianism. In South Asia it is often called naubat (a Persian word denoting watches or stages of the day) or naubatkhāna. For the South-east Asian nobat, see Malaysia, §I, 1(ii).
At Sanchi, in central India, what appears to be a representation of a naqqārakhāna ensemble was sculpted at about the time of Christ. It consists of a pair of conical pipes, two S-shaped trumpets and two drums. The players’ costumes suggest that they were probably Scythians (Śaka) or Parthians. Oboes, trumpets and drums of Arabo-Persian origin are recorded in India from the late 1st millennium, but the naubat orchestra is first mentioned in South Asia in the early period of Turko-Iranian rule, the Delhi Sultanate (1193–1526), for example the nāobatikā of the Maithili work Varnaratnākara (c1325), and during this period the band’s instruments were frequently mentioned (see Śahnāī, Nagārā, and Nāgasvaram). In South Asia the naubat appears to have replaced the earlier Hindu-Buddhist royal band, the pańcamahāśabda (which was similar but with conch-shell trumpets instead of oboes), and spread throughout South Asia, functioning at state, religious and military occasions and accompanying local and Ādivāsī dances, processional bands for weddings etc.
During the Delhi Sultanate and the succeeding Mughal period (1526–1858) the naubat was part of the insignia of feudal rank in India, its use granted and its size determined by the Emperor. The Emperor’s own naqqārakhāna was naturally the largest of all; that of the great Mughal ruler, Akbar, described by his chronicler Abū’l Fazl (c1590), contained 18 pairs of kuwargāh, or damāma (bass drums), about 20 pairs of naqqāra (treble and bass kettledrums), four duhul (cylindrical drums), several karnā (long trumpets) of gold, silver and brass, nine śahnāī (oboes), nafīr (trumpets), sīng (brass curved trumpets) and three pairs of sanj (cymbals). Fazl also gave an important account of the melodies and scoring of the Mughal naqqārakhāna, and of Akbar’s performing ability, especially on naqqāra.
With the abolition of the princely states at Independence naqqārakhāna have been reduced in number, but a few small ones still exist, such as the one at the shrine (dargāh) of Mu’inuddin Chishtī at Ajmer, India. In South Asia the highland bagpipe, brought by Scottish regiments during the British raj, has largely replaced the oboe in local ensembles.
See also Islamic religious music, §I, 4.
N.A. Jairazbhoy: ‘A Preliminary Survey of the Oboe in India’, EthM, xiv (1970), 375–88
J. Levy: disc notes, Music from the Shrines of Ajmer and Mundra, Tangent TGM 105 (1970); reissued as TSCD911 (1995)
J. Baily: ‘A Description of the Naqqarakhana of Herat’, AsM, ii/2 (1980), 1–10
A. Dick: ‘The Earlier History of the Shawm in India’, GSJ, xxxvii (1984), 80–98
C. Tingey: ‘Music for the Royal dasaī (Gorkhā and Nuwākot)’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, xii–xiii (1997)
JOHN BAILY, ALASTAIR DICK