The principal indigenous term for chordophones in India and other countries of South Asia. The name (and its derivatives: Tamil vīnai; New Indo-Aryan bīnā, bīn, etc.) has been used for almost three millennia to denote the main type of the age: the musical bow; the early harps; the short lute; the medieval stick or tube zithers; bowed chordophones; and various descendants of the above in the contexts of both traditional music and Hindustani and Karnatak traditions, including the modern South Indian vīnā, a lute.
3. Stick zithers in local traditions.
ALISTAIR DICK (1, 3, 4, 5(i), 6), RICHARD WIDDESS (2), GORDON GEEKIE (5(ii))
The name vīnā is first documented in the Yajurveda (c1000 bce). A possible chordophone, however, referred to in the earlier Rgveda and Atharvaveda is the gárgara or karkarí, which may have been a musical bow resonated on a skin-covered pot or gourd. Some ideograms of the pre-Aryan Indus culture (3rd–2nd millennia bce) may show a curved stick with three or four strings which could have evolved into the later harps or bow harps. From the Rgveda on, there are frequent references to the ‘song’ of the archer’s bow which points to this as the possible origin of later chordophones. The medieval Sanskrit pinākī and later northern pināk are bowed bows, while the southern vil or villu are struck bows.
The Yajurveda contrasts the vīnā, said to be associated with animals (paśu), with the kāndavīnā, associated with plants (osadhi). The meaning of the latter (kānda: ‘internode of cane’) makes it likely to have been a tube or a stick zither, possibly idiochord; it is not known if it had an extra resonator. The later stick zithers probably go back to these early forms. At the same time, it is clear that vīnā, unqualified, at this period denoted the harps or bow harps, whose animal components are referred to. The name may derive from a pre-Aryan root meaning ‘bamboo’ (possibly Dravidian, as in the Tamil veram: ‘cane’), giving also venu (‘bamboo’, ‘flute’), and vena (‘caneworker’). In this case the name would have originated with early tube or stick zithers.
Arched harps are assumed to have reached South Asia from the ancient Middle East. Various types of vīnā (not all necessarily harps) are mentioned in the Vedas (1st millennium bce) as instruments of ritual, and in classical literature (c500 bce onwards) as instruments of court entertainment music. The latter role is confirmed for the harp by the earliest (mainly Buddhist) art from the 2nd century bce until about the 6th century ce. The harp continues to appear sporadically in iconography to the end of the 1st millennium, but seems then to have died out in South Asia, with the possible exceptions of the waji of Nuristan and the bīn bājā of Madhya Pradesh.
Apart from angular harps known in Gandhāra (North-West India), all South Asian harps were horizontal arched (or bow) harps: the curved wooden neck merged at the lower end with a wooden boat-shaped resonator. The gut or vegetable-fibre strings typically numbered seven (citrā vīnā). The ‘bow-harp’ type, in which the resonator is attached beneath one end of the arch, and in which the strings are attached to the arch at both ends in the manner of a polychord musical bow, can occasionally be identified in iconography, and is represented today by the waji and the bīn bājā. This type is distinct from harps elsewhere in Asia, most of which have a separate string-bar, and perhaps derives from indigenous musical bows under the influence of harps from West Africa.
In South Asia, short-necked lutes first appear in the Graeco-Buddhist art of the 1st to 3rd centuries ce of Gandhāra. They appear in Buddhist art from the 2nd to 6th centuries ce, and thereafter sporadically in Hindu art to the end of the millennium. They generally occur in the same contexts as harps.
In Gandhāran art a wide variety of types are found. The resonator may be ovoid or barbed, with or without soundholes. The strings, generally three or four, may be attached to a straight, lute-type bridge, or pass over a flat rectangular bridge, similar to that later characteristic of various Indian instruments. In South Indian art larger, generally five-string, uniformly pear-shaped lutes appear.
Of various unidentified instrument names in Sanskrit literature, kacchapī (‘tortoise’) vīnā is thought to denote a lute type.
In the second half of the 1st millennium ce various types of single-string stick zither with gourd resonators supplanted the harp- and lute-vīnā as instruments of court music and assumed an important role in religious iconography. They may have been indigenous traditional instruments before their adoption into art music. The type survives in the modern north Indian bīn, and in various traditional instruments including the tuila, kullutan rājan, jantar and kinnarī vīnā. There are very detailed descriptions by the 13th-century musicologist Śārngadeva who distinguishes three principal types: ālāpinī, ekatantrī (‘one-string’) and kinnarī vīnā.
All the stick zithers comprised a hollow bamboo or wooden tube, along which a single string (of gut, sinew, silk, cotton or metal) was stretched. At the lower end the string passed over a rectangular bridge with a convex upper surface, which caused a buzzing effect when the string vibrated; at the other end the string was attached to the body either directly or (on the metal-stringed kinnarī vīnā) with the aid of a tuning-peg. Additional resonators could be attached. On the ālāpinī, a hemispherical cup made from half a hollowed dried gourd was fastened behind the upper end of the tube; the opening of this cup was pressed against the player’s chest to form a closed resonance-chamber. A similar gourd on the ekatantrī and kinnarī vīnā was held higher, resting on the player’s shoulder; on the latter a second and even third gourd could be attached lower down the instrument.
Bowed chordophones are also mentioned in or described by medieval Sanskrit texts. The Sangīta-ratnākara (early 13th century) gives a detailed description of the bow and of two instruments played with it. The pinākī (‘bow’) vīnā was a musical bow, with a tapering staff about 80 cm long. Two small terracotta khetaka (‘inverted cups’) are fixed to each end at the back, and the string is threaded and tied through holes near each end. The lower end of the bow was placed on a gourd resonator held on the ground by the feet, and the upper end leant against the shoulder. The string was stopped by the stem of a small gourd held in the player’s left hand.
The playing bow (cāpa, dhanu, both, like pināka, meaning ‘bow’) was about 40 cm long, but reduced (by curvature) to a hair length of ‘two fists’ (not a standard measurement, but perhaps about 30 cm). To the whittled-down ends would be attached the hair (‘of horse’s tail’), with resin (rālā) from the sāl tree.
Another bowed instrument is described by Śārngadeva is the nihśankā vīnā. The description of the instrument indicates a string four hands long tied at its upper end to a piece of wood and at its lower end to another piece (measuring one-and-a-half hands), whose last two ‘inches’ are whittled to a spike one ‘inch’ thick. A gourd is attached near the bottom. A thimble of dried-out leather (peśī), stiffened with an inside rod (kona), or the rod alone, may be used to stop the string. The manner of stopping the strings of these vīnā is probably the origin of the similar method found on the modern sārangī.
Many of the aspects of the medieval stick zithers described above survive in traditional instruments throughout the subcontinent, though the name vīnā/bīn is rare. The ālāpinī type appears to survive in India only in the Orissan tuila. The instrument which has contributed most to the concert vīnā, and which is most widespread in various shapes and sizes, is the kinnarī vīnā. Of this type are the small stick zithers of the eastern Ādivāsī peoples, such as the kullutan rājan of the Saora; others include the large kinnarī vīnā of Karnataka and the jantar of Rajasthan, the smaller jantar of Madhya Pradesh (now bowed) and the king of the Punjab and Jammu.
The vīnā in the North Indian form bīn is found in the early Muslim court and early Mughal period records, along with other forms of vīnā such as the jantar, kinnarī vīnā and the sirbīn. It had evolved from the medieval kinnarī vīnā into what is substantially its modern form by the 16th century.
The body of the bīn is a long, hollow, wooden ‘stick’ (dandi etc.), or tube, sometimes carved outside with nodes to resemble bamboo and capped at both ends with brass tubing, to which two large bottle-gourds (tumbā; alābu, lāū) are attached some way below the ends near each end of the fret area. It is around 122 cm long with 24 frets and seven strings. The strings are of metal (brass and steel). The gourds are almost whole and are attached by plaited leather thongs passing up from an interior supporting wooden disc through an intermediate wooden bobbin and holes in the stick; a round hole (about 12 cm wide) is excised in their base. Modern bīn may have their gourds attached by a heavy brass screw-tube. Both frets (about 2 cm high) and nut (about 2·5 cm) are thin (4 mm) upright brass-capped wooden plates; they are straight on top but carved below in an arch which fits on the neck and is held by a cement of wax and soot. The peg area has a typical bilateral arrangement of five main pegs (two on one side and three on the other), and a clockwise disposition of strings 1 to 5 from above the nut on the right side (player’s view) to the same position on the left; strings 1 to 4 pass over the nut from right to left (i.e. with the main string nearest to the player’s right hand, an arrangement similar to that of the southern vīnā). String 5 runs down the left side of the neck, and strings 6 and 7 pass from pegs below the nut down the right. A complex bridge-piece is fitted into the lower opening of the tube, often carved as the front of a peacock, with deep, curving bone or ivory surfaces on its back and wings for the three sets of strings tied around projecting pin string holders below each section.
The tuning of the four melody strings ma-sa-PA-SA has become standard, giving a range of three and a half octaves on the 23 or 24 frets. This, with the two cikārī on the right (tuned to the upper and middle tonics) and the drone string on the left (usually tuned to the middle tonic), provided a model for the developing Hindustani lutes (sitār, sūrbahār) in the 19th century.
The main strings of the bīn are played with downward strokes of the right index and middle fingers, and the side-strings with upward strokes of the little fingers (on the left side the thumb is also used). The instrument is held across the body, with the left gourd on the shoulder and the right on the hip.
The bīn is sometimes known as the rudra vīnā (the vīnā of the ascetic god, Śiva, the great yogi). Since it has no soundtable, the forward projection of the sound is weak, but it vibrates powerfully into the body of the player. The stick with its nodes is regarded as the merudanda (both the human spine and the cosmic axis) and the gourds as the breasts either of Śiva’s wife Parvati or of Sarasvatī, goddess of arts and learning.
This is a large, long-necked, plucked lute, the principal chordophone of Karnatak music (often simply called ‘vīnā’). It is played mainly by members of the brahman caste in the four southern states of India (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka) and in Sri Lanka.
The name refers to the icon of the Hindu goddess Sarasvatī playing this vīnā. Sarasvatī is the goddess of vidyā: the understanding of the nature of life which releases the individual from the cycle of reincarnation. It is thought that the pursuit of music leads to this understanding.
The Sarasvatī vīnā is a long-necked lute, a later development than the stick zithers described above, which are found equally in southern medieval sculpture. Tamil tradition ascribes changes in the vīnā to the reign of Raghunatha Nayaka of Thanjavur (1614–32). In terms of historical organology, the instrument’s origins are hybrid. The main body derives from the long-necked barbed rabāb of the pre-Mughal Deccan Muslim courts. As on the latter, the neck and shell are sometimes in one piece; hence also the flange where they meet, a vestige of the barb, and the open, bent-back animal-motif pegbox. The wooden soundtable, the bridge and the stylised shoulder-and-ribs pattern on the shell derive from the long-necked lutes which were originally carvel-built. A final layer of features (the embedded chromatic frets, the mock-gourd upper resonator, the stringing and tuning and the playing technique) originate in the stick zither tradition. This vīnā is thus a unique blend of South Asian types, perhaps around three centuries old.
There are two types of modern instrument: the Thanjavur and the Mysore. The latter is made of blackwood and the former of lighter jakwood. Other differences lie mainly in the decoration of the instruments (the Thanjavur vīnā is much more elaborately carved and brightly painted) and in the position of the soundholes on the table.
The body has three main parts. The shell (kayi, kudam) is hemispherical and hollowed from a single piece of wood, often with mock ‘shoulder-and-ribs’ carving on the back. The heavy hollow neck (dandi) has straight sides rounded at the back and tapering lightly towards the top; a second resonator (burra), of gourd, metal or papier-maché, is screwed into a small metal cup fixed to the back of the neck below the nut. The pegbox is bent back, and open at the front, with a bilateral peg arrangement (two on the right, two on the left); it terminates in a dragon (yāli) head design (sometimes there is also an opening compartment for accessories). These three parts are often separate, but for tone quality the ekadandi vīnā, with shell and neck of one piece, and above all the ehānda or ekavada vīnā, with all three parts solid, are specially prized. A projecting ivory ledge (gvantu) round the sides and back of the neck and shell joint is found on some types. The shell is covered by a round, thin, flat wooden soundtable (yeddapalaka), which has two decorated soundholes about 5 cm in diameter in the upper quadrants. The bridge (gurram or kudirai: ‘horse’) is in the centre of the soundtable; it is similar to that of the sitar, with a wooden, bench-shaped trestle about 6·5 cm wide and 3 cm deep, but covered with a metal plate. The four main strings pass over the top, and the three tāla, or side strings, over a buttress-like metal arc which extends from the right side of the bridge down to the soundtable.
The neck is covered by a thin board (dandipalaka). Along each side is a raised ledge (maruvapalaka) to which is applied a cement of wax and lamp-black which holds the frets (metlu) in place. The frets are straight brass bars, rounded on top and about 5 mm thick; there are 24, giving two full chromatic octaves on the first of the four main strings. The strings (two of steel, two of brass) are fitted in right-to-left descending order. The three side strings pass from their pegs in the side of the neck, below the nut and over three small knobs.
All seven strings are secured below the bridge to thick wires (langar) with fine-tuning devices in the form of sliding metal rings attached to an inferior string holder, a unique development on Indian lutes.
The player sits cross-legged on a mat, with the left foot tucked behind the right knee and the left leg resting on the right foot. The secondary resonator, attached below the neck of the instrument, rests on the left knee and the main resonator rests on a mat, touching the right knee. The instrument is played tilted forwards. The left arm encircles the neck to fret the melody strings. The left forearm, moving up and down the smooth surface of the neck, also supports the vīnā (it is considered sacrilegious to play the vīnā left-handed).
The melody strings are struck (downwards only) with the nails of the middle and forefingers of the right hand and muted with the fingertips. The melody string nearest the tāla strings is called sāranī and is tuned to the system-tonic (shadja). The next string (paĂcama) is tuned a 4th below, and the next (mandra) an octave below the sāranī; the fourth string (anumandra) is tuned an octave below the paĂcama.
The melody strings are fretted with the forefinger and middle finger of the left hand. The player develops a groove from the corner of the nail across the tip of each finger within which the string slides, the method of playing being up and down single strings. The low string tension permits pitch movements of up to four semitones by deflection of the string downwards and along the fret. The player deflects, or ‘pulls’, the sāranī under the paĂcama (and the paĂcama under the mandra), while simultaneously muting the paĂcama etc. with the underside of the tips of both fingers.
The large frets and absence of a fingerboard permit the player to sound notes without using the right hand by gliding up to a fret from a pitch below and/or by deflecting the string behind a fret. Both types of melodic movement are called gamaka (see India, §III, 3(i)).
In the Mysore tradition, facility in executing gamaka is highly regarded; in deflected gamaka the timing is often deliberately complex and asymmetrical. The Mysore vīnā masters teach the skill of alternating struck notes, which mark rhythmic accents, and gamaka, which through their relative dynamics and complex timing mask (or conceal) rhythmic accents.
The three tāla (metre) strings are tuned to the system tonic, the octave above and the perfect 5th between. They are struck (upwards only) with the nail of the little finger on the right hand. (For repertory see India, §III, 6(i).)
The vicitrā vīnā and gottuvādyam are unfretted lutes of Hindustani and Karnatak music respectively. They are played, Hawaiian-guitar style, by a smooth sliding-block in the left hand and plucking by the right. Both appear to be modern instruments dating from the 19th century. The gottuvādyam (‘block instrument’) is structurally a sarasvatī vīnā without frets, but, uniquely for a southern classical instrument, it has from 7 to 13 sympathetic strings, which run from their pegs (set in the distal side of the neck) through and along the fingerboard under the main strings. The instrument rests on the floor before the player, with the resonator to his right. The sliding-block is of hardwood. The first melody string, nearest to the player, is a double course tuned to an octave. The instrument is plucked with the fingers. The gottuvādyam is also called the mahānātaka vīnā, suggesting an origin in dramatic music.
The northern vicitrā (‘colourful’) vīnā is structurally a hybrid of the bīn-sitār type: it has a wide neck (about 10 cm) which is flat on top and rounded in section beneath (about 3 cm deep), and pegs for the sympathetic strings set in the proximal side (the playing position is as for the gottuvādyam). The neck terminates on the right in an integrated, wood-covered resonator, which in some cases is smaller and pear-shaped, in others larger and similar to that of the sitar. The instrument rests on two large bottle-gourds which are screwed into the back of the neck. The main strings are tuned in descending 4ths and 5ths; the slider (battā) is a glass egg.
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