The Ancient Viińá
In ancient times, human beings used to sing songs in unison with the reverberations of birds’ twittering. The original stringed instrument is the ektárá, a one stringed musical instrument invented during prehistoric times to bring resonance to the sound of the string.
The ektárá was first used by the Baul community in Ráŕh. Experienced Bauls show some melodic virtuosity on the ektárá although this requires a special kind of dexterity in the fingers.
The ektárá was first used by the Baul community in Ráŕh. Experienced Bauls show some melodic virtuosity on the ektárá although this requires a special kind of dexterity in the fingers.
If you take away the string from ektara, the part that is left we can call kolamba. The lower portion of the kolamba was made from the hard, dry shell of the ripe gourd in olden times. In some places it is used still now. This shell especially helps to deepen the sound, thereby the sound becomes harmonious.
Shiva improved upon this ektárá and made the viiń or viińá. About 7500 years the viińá was the only musical instrument in the world. When Shiva first started his musical sadhana, he did it with this viińá. It was the first musical instrument so devised as to maintain unison with surasaptaka or the musical octave that Shiva invented.
He had to make practically superhuman efforts with this primitive viińá. He had to string his instrument very carefully to get the proper sound. It was Shiva who made the rágas and rágińiis. He introduced soul-stirring modulation into them. He felt the need for musical metre – without metre and tempo there could be no song. To maintain the rhythm he invented the horn and the d́ambaru [a small drum shaped like an hourglass].
He had to make practically superhuman efforts with this primitive viińá. He had to string his instrument very carefully to get the proper sound. It was Shiva who made the rágas and rágińiis. He introduced soul-stirring modulation into them. He felt the need for musical metre – without metre and tempo there could be no song. To maintain the rhythm he invented the horn and the d́ambaru [a small drum shaped like an hourglass].
This viiń was gradually refined and improved upon, and different other string instruments came into being, such as the sitar, esraj, violin, tempura and so on. Some of them had frets and others not. The violin was invented in eastern Italy and the sitar in Persia (Iran). Nearly all the other stringed instruments were invented in India.
The simple viina or viiń from Shiva’s time fell out of use nearly 6000 years ago.
In the post-Shiva, Vedic era the tabor and horn took the form of the mrdauṋga. That was during the end of the Yajurvedic era and the beginning of the Atharvavedic era. From the original mrdauṋga developed in later times the Benares mrdauṋga and the Bengal mrdauṋga or khola (the Vaeśńavas also sometimes call it shriikhola). The mrdauṋga and khola, however, are not identical, so their sound is also not the same.
The tabla is a metamorphosed form of this mrdauṋga. Some people believe that the tabla came from Persia but this is not the case; the tabla originated in India. From Persia came the sitar.(‘sitar’- means a combination of three (‘si’) strings).
Ekavada (eka + vad + ghaiṋ) is a musical instrument which produces sound in harmony or mutually related notes of the scale. Among the musical instruments familiar to us, the harmonium and the tempura fall into this category. Among insects and animals, the cricket, owl, frog and jackal follow to some extent this same system of producing sound in harmony. The donkey, cuckoo and Indian nightingale follow it to a limited degree. The sitar or esraj do not fall into the category of ekaváda. Some people think that ekaváda means ekatárá [a one-stringed instrument]. No, the Sanskrit word for ekatárá is samaváda, not ekaváda.
Text is from the writings of Shrii P R Sarkar
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