Ravanahatha: India musical instrument

The ravanahatha is an ancient bowed fiddle. The fiddle was once a popular musical instrument in the western part of India and Sri Lanka.

source of picture: commons.wikimedia.org

The musical instrument is believed to have originated among the Hela civilization of Sri Lanka in the period of King Ravana, the bowl is manufactured out of cut coconut shell, and the mouth is covered with the hide of a goat. A dandi that is manufactured of bamboo is fixed to the shell of the instrument. The principle strings of the ravanahatha are two; one of them is of steel and the other string is of a set of horsehair. The long bow possesses jingle bells. Throughout the medieval indian history, kings were the main people using the musical instrument; this helped in increasing the popularity of the musical instrument among the royal families in the country. In Rajasthan and Gurjarat, the musical instrument was the first to be learned by the princes. The Sangit tradition of Rajasthan further assisted in making the musical instrument popular among the ladies also.

According to myth, Ravana was an ardent devotee of the Hindu god Shiva, and served him with the use of soulful music from the musical instrument. In the Hindu Ramayana epic, after the war that existed between Rama and Ravana, Hanuman picked up this instrument and returned to the Nothern part of India. In India, the musical instrument is still being played in Rajasthan. From India, the instrument moved westwards to the middle East and Europewhere it came to be called the ravan strong in the 9^th century.

In the modern times, the musical instrument has been renewed by Sri Lankan composer and violin player known as Dinesh Subasinghe and used in many of his compositions, including Rawan nada and the Buddhist oratorio Karuna Nadee.