The essays in this book constitute an extensive study of the musical arts of north India from the 13th to the 19th centuries. Using material from several languages Sanskrit, Awadhi, Braj-Bhasha, Persian and Urdu they trace the varied developments in the musical arts and show how Indian, Central Asian, and Perso-Arab performance traditions underwent synthesis to become one tradition the north Indian Hindustani tradition.

Highlighting the cultural milieu of north India, with diverse patterns of belief and cultural practices, these essays bring out significant details regarding the emergence of new elites, changing tastes, encounters between the court music traditions and the folk varieties, the percolation of court culture, the elevation of popular elements, the aesthetic values, the artistic vision, and, more importantly, the vibrancy and compositeness of the medieval and early modern north Indian musical culture that contributed to the shaping of the Hindustani tradition.

The Emergence of the Hindustani Tradition forges a link between history and musicology and emphasizes the importance of musical texts as a source of history. It enriches research on the history of music by bringing forth the role of the subaltern classes, specifically the role of women, in the making of Hindustani classicism.