Khamaj (thaat)

Khamaj (IAST: Khamāj) is one of the ten thaats (parent scales) of Hindustani music from the Indian subcontinent. It is also the name of a raga within this thaat.^[1]

The Khamaj thaat can be obtained by replacing the Shuddha Nishad of Bilaval by Komal Nishad. The ragas of this thaat are full of Shringara Rasa (romantic) hence this raga is mostly rendered in the form of light classical thumris, tappas, horis, kajris etc. Its pictorial descriptions in the existing texts are sensuous and even today, the raga Khamaj is considered to be a 'flirtatious' raag. There is a theory which assumes that in the past, the Khamaj scale found its way in the Ch'in music of late medieval China.^{[citation needed]}