Thaat

It is an important and very useful classification of Raags of Indian Classical Music. This system was created by a well-known musicologist of that time Pt. Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande in the early decades of the 20^th century. Before that time, we only have a raag classification for South Indian music named ‘MELKARTA’ back in the Year 1640 by Guru Venkatamakhin. To create this huge collection of Raag Pt. Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande visited many Gurus from different gharanas and states. At the time of his research, He found out 32 Thaats but he only highlighted 10 from this list.

It is believed that several raags are based on these thaats. It is a concept to help us group similar type of Raags. Similar in the sense of the swaras and nature of the notes. As a Raag is basically a special sequence of musical notes or sawaras used in Indian Classical Music. There are 12 musical notes in Indian Classical Music. Which are categorized as:

• Shudh Swaras, (Click to know more)
• Komal Sawaras, (Click to know more)
• Teevra Sawar. (Click to know more)

From these 12 notes, masters used different groups as Avroh and Avroh using different combinations of musical notes to create Raags. And then, A special categorization on the basis of similar note groups as a Thaat. Now let us understand about the characterization of Raags as Thaat.

• A Thaat has seven notes or swaras – no more or less
• It should always form as aaroh (ascending order) of swaras: Sa(Shadaj), Re(Rikhab), Ga(Gandhar), Ma(Madhyam), Pa(Pancham), Dha(Dhaivat), Ni(Nishad).

• We can’t sing a Thaat. We can only sing the Raags as they don’t have emotional moods like ragas.
• Thaat can’t contain both Vikrit(Komal) or Shudh Sawaras of the same swara. In simple terms, both Shudh Re and Komal Re, Shudh Dha and Komal Dha, Shudh Ni, and Komal Ni can’t be used at the same time. But in a Raag we are allowed to use them as required.