Rudra veena: India musical instrument

The rudra veena is a large plucked string musical instrument that is used in the Hindustani classical music, one of the major types of veena that is played in the Indian classical music.

source of picture: rudraveena.org

The rudra veena has a long tubular body with a length of about 54 and 62 inches. The body of the instrument is made of wood or bamboo. Two large-sized, round resonator that are made of dried and hollowed gourds are fixed under the tube. 24 brass-fitted raised wooden frets are fixed on the tube with the assistance of wax. There are four main strings and three chikari strings on the musical instrument.

As rudra is a name given to the Hindu god shiva, rudra veena literally means ‘the veena dear to shiva’.

The rudra veena is an ancient musical instrument that is rarely played in the modern time. The popularity of the musical instrument declined in part because of the introduction of the surbahar in the early part of the 19^th century that permitted sitarists to more easily present the alap sections of slow dhrupad style ragas. Zia Mohiuddin  Dagar modified and redesigned the musical instrument to use bigger gourds, a thicker tube, a thicker steel playing strings and closed Javari that in the 20^th century. This manufactured a deep sound when the instrument is plucked without the use of any plectrum. The musical instrument was further altered to be the shruti veena modified by Lalmani Misra to fabricate Bharat’s Shadja Gram and get the 22 shrutis.