I repeat what I said earlier, classical music is governed by munde munde matir bhinna (different people, different approach/attitude). In this context I might add that the word mohra has completely different meanings with reference to sitar and tabla.
A word of advice : if you know a person very well, it does not matter what name you call him with. Different relations would call him with different names like- son, brother,husband, father, friend etc. Once you know the musical technique in question, it does not matter what name you call it with. Thus different forms of art would have their own selected names for individual techniques. Frankly, one must concentrate on an effective execution of the technique in question rather than worry about its nomenclature.
On checking, I found that in the language of tabla, mohra means a short piece of 2/3 matras played at a faster pace to reach the sam. If the piece is longer than 4 matras, it is called a mukhda. It was also explained that this technique is very important and precious like a mohar (a precious coin in olden days).
(Explanation about mohra in tabla is based on the information I received from some senior tabla exponents.)
But a very wellknown tabla player mentioned zarab in a very different way in the context of laya (tempo)
13. But a very wellknown tabla player mentioned zarab in a very different way in the context of laya (tempo). He said that Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Ali Akbar khan’s music is beyond the obvious layakari/ginatikari but it still sounds complete. When questioned, he mentioned about zarab ki laya, meaning a total command on laya. He said, “unka ek ek avartan sur aur lay se bhara hua tha“.