Bilawal is the plainest of the ten thaats: every one of its seven swaras is shuddha (natural) — no flattened komal swara, no sharpened tivra Ma. That makes it the reference row the other nine thaats on this site are measured against, and it is why its own komal/tivra count comes out to zero: compared against itself, nothing differs.
The seven swaras, from Sa
Declared as semitone offsets from Sa, then read through the fixed chromatic-to-sargam table — nothing here is a raga's actual phrasing, only the classification frame's seven available positions.
| Degree | Offset (semitones from Sa) | Swara |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | Sa |
| 2 | 2 | Re |
| 3 | 4 | Ga |
| 4 | 5 | Ma |
| 5 | 7 | Pa |
| 6 | 9 | Dha |
| 7 | 11 | Ni |
Where it falls on the sitar
With Sa placed on C, every fret across all five strings whose pitch class is one of Bilawal's seven swaras — computed from the registry's true open pitches and the instrument's fifteen-fret board, not a hand-drawn diagram:
| String | Frets | Swaras |
|---|---|---|
| 5th string (C3) | 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 | Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa, Re |
| 4th string (G3) | 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 | Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha |
| 3rd string (C4) | 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 | Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa, Re |
| 2nd string (G4) | 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 | Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha |
| 1st string (C5) | 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 | Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa, Re |
Notice the G strings (4th and 2nd) read Pa first, not Sa: they are tuned to the fifth, so the SAME seven swaras land on a different starting fret than the three C strings do. The pattern repeats every twelve frets because a thaat, like any octave-based scale, has no edge — it is the same seven positions again, one octave up.
A frame, not a raga
Bilawal being "all shuddha" does not mean it is the sitar's default tuning or its easiest raga — it means this particular set of seven swara positions has nothing flattened or sharpened relative to itself. Ragas built on Bilawal (Alhaiya Bilawal among them) still have their own ascent, descent, and emphasis; the thaat only says which seven notes are available, never which order they come in or how long a performance lingers on any one of them. In 12-TET terms this same set of seven pitch classes is what the scale library publishes as Major, and again as Ionian — one set under two names, and a reference approximation rather than an equivalence.
Where to start
Compare this table against Kafi, the next thaat in this set, to see exactly two swaras move. Then take the same seven swaras onto the fretboard explorer and light them by ear, and warm up the picking hand on the daily drills before asking it to find any of this quickly.