ABSTRACT
The art-heritage of Gujarat reflects the importance of artistic patronage in medieval Western India. This chapter intends to present a survey of sources on some aspects of the cultural policy of the Sultans of Gujarat - and particularly on their music patronage - within the framework of a wider project on the 'Social and Literary History of Court-Musicians in Western India, 14th -18th Centuries'. Among the pre-Mughal states, the period of the Sultanate of Gujarat is famous for its Hindu and Indo-Persian architecture. This attests to an aristocratic taste for building exquisitely carved temples or elegant mosques flanked by graceful minarets, monumental tombs, refined pavilions and lofty palaces, made by skilful local artisans and craftsmen. Musicological literature in Sanskrit or Indo-Persian is also a source of documentation on aristocratic patronage to music. Only a few modem historians of medieval India have used Indo-Persian chronicles for their references to socio-cultural aspects of the history of the Gujarat Sultanate.
