Sarawati veena: India musical instruemnt

The sarawati veena is an Indian plucked string musical instrument. The instrument is named after the Hindu goddess known as saraswati, who is often portrayed holding the musical instrument or playing the musical instrument.

source of picture: en.wikipedia.org

 The musical instrument is also known as raghunatha veena and is mostly in the Carnatic Indian classical music. There are many variants of this musical instrument, which in its south Indian form is a member of the lute family of musical instrument. The player of this musical instrument is called ‘vainika’.

The sarawati veena is one of the major kinds of veena that is popular today. The others include chitra veena, vichitra veena and rudra veena. The rudra and vichitra  veenas are used in the Hindustani music, while the sarawati veena and the chitra veena are used in the Carnatic music of the south India. Some people play the musical instrument in the contemporary music, while other play the instrument in the traditional music.

The musical instrument has a recorded history that has been traced back to 1500 BCE.

In the ancient times, the tone vibration from the hunter’s bow string when he shot an arrow was called the Vil Yash. The musical sound of the bow string is called Atharvaveda in the ancient times. Suddenly the archer’s bow was replaced by the musical bow. Twisted bark, vegetable fibre and animal gut, strands of grass and grass root were used in the production of the first strings. Over the evolution and modification of the musical instrument, more specific names were used to assist distinguish the musical instruments that followed.

The veena instruments developed more like a tree, branching out into musical instruments as diverse as the harp-like Akasa and the Audumbari veena. The musical instrument ranges from one string to one hundred strings and were made up of many various materials like eagle bone, bamboo, wood, and the shell of a coconut. The yazh was an old harp-like musical instrument that was also seen as a veena. But with development of the fretted veena musical instruments, the yazh was discarded faster as the fretted veena permitted for easy performance of ragas and the myrid subtle nuances and pitch oscillations in the gamakas that is seen in the Indian musical system. The musical instruments of the early times were played vertically as seen in many Hindu temple sculpture and paintings. The great Indian Carnatic music composer and player of the sarawati veena, Muthuswami Dikshitar started popularizing the horizontal playing of the musical instrument.

The current form of the instrument with 24 fixed frets originated in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu during the reign of Raghunatha Nayak and it is for this reason unconsciously called Tanjore veena or the Raghunatha veena. Before the time of Padmabhooshan Prof. P. Sambamurthy,a musicologist , the number of frets found on the instrument were less and more movable. The musical instrument developed from the Kinnari veena. Produce in several regions in the Southern part of India, those manufactured by producers from Thanjavur in the South India of Tamil Nadu are considered to be the most sophisticated instruments till the present day. While the sarawati veena is seen in the lute genealogy, other North Indian veenas like the rudra veena and Vichitra veena are technically zithers.

About four feet in length, the design is made up of a large resonator, carved and hollowed out of a log, tapering hollow neck topped with about twenty four brass or bell-metal frets set in the decorated black wax on the wooden tracks and a tuning box that is ending downward curve and an decorated dragon’s head. If a veena is carved from a single piece of wood, the instrument is known as Ekantha.

The musical instrument is performed by sitting cross-legged with the musical instrument held titled slightly away from the player of the musical instrument. The small gourd on the left side of the instrument rests on the left thigh of the player, the left arm passing under the neck of the instrument with the hand curving up and around so that the fingers of the player will rest upon the frets of the instrument. The palm of the right hand rests on the edge of the top plank so that the fingers of the player can pluck the strings of the instrument. The drone strings of the instrument are performed with the little finger of the hand. The large resonator of the instrument is placed on the floor, beyond the right thigh of the player.

Like the sitar, the left hand pattern involves playing the frets of the instrument, controlled pushing on the strings to gain higher tones and glissandi via increased tension and the finger flicks, all reflecting the characteristics of different ragas and their decoration. Modern inventions include one or two circular sound holes, replacement of machine heads for wooden pegs for easier tuning of the instrument and the widespread use of transducer for amplification in performance.

Sarawati, the patron Hindu Goddess of learning and the arts is normally portrayed seated upon a swan playing the musical instrument. Lord Shiva is also portrayed playing or holding a veena in his form known as ‘vinadhara’, that means “bearer of the veena”.

The Ramayana, the Puranas and the Bhagavata all contain references to the veena, the sutra and the aranyaka. The Vedic sage Yajnavalkya talks of the greatness of the musical instrument in the following verses: “One who is skilled in Veena play, one who is an expert in the varieties of srutis and one who is proficient in tala gain salvation without effort.”

Many references of the musical instrument are made in the ancient Sanskirt and Tamil literature and musical compositions. Each physical portion of the musical instrument is said to be the seat in which subtle aspect of different gods and goddesses reside in Hinduism. The neck of the instrument is shiva, the strings of the instrument make up his consort, Parvati. The bridge of the instrument is Lakshmi, the secondary gourd of the instrument is the Brahma and the dragon head of the instrument is the Vishnu. Ans sawarati is upon the resonating body of the instrument. ‘The veena is the home of divinity and the source of all happiness’. - R. Rangaramanuja Ayyangar.

C.V. Raman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist has described the musical instrument as having distinct construction. The string terminations at the both extremes are curved and not sharp. Also, the frets of the instrument have much more curving than any other musical instrument. The string, unlike in the guitar, does not have to be pushed down to the very base of the instrument’s neck, so no rattling sound is produced. This style permits a continuous control over that tension string that is crucial for glissandi. The beeswax under the frets of the instrument may function as a noise filter.