Evolution of the vINA

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 22 Jul 2007, 10:10

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2007/07/20/stor ... 360200.htm

Did not know about the four fretted origins. Wonder how many frets Sri Dikshitar's instrument had!

sridharan · Post by **sridharan** » 24 Jul 2007, 20:57

The present Saraswati Veena is older than Dikshithar, I believe.

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 24 Jul 2007, 21:25

Correct me if I am wrong. IIRC, the current Veena structure is the same as proposed in Sangeetha Sudha (and called as Raghunatha mELa Veena) - of Govinda Dikshita, father of Venkata Makhi.

This should place the 22 fretted (or is it 24) Veena to be around 1600 AD. However there was a practice of keeping the instrument vertical (like a tamboori) accrording to some pictures I have seen in books.

Muttuswamy Dikshita is always shown with his Veena placed horizontally, but these pictures are from the imagination of 19th/20th century artists. Right?

-Ramakriya

veenajj · Post by **veenajj** » 25 Jul 2007, 00:56

Quite right. The present day veena, capable of traversing 3-1/2 octaves, with 24 fixed frets, was given its structure by Govinda Dikshitar. The evolution of the veena has happened parallelly with the evolution of the physics of music itself. One can trace the history from the primitive age with cavemen using coconut shells and skulls, fixing a bamboo stick and tying the nerve of an animal over the arrangement to produce some sound (from a sort of ektara). Later, when people hit upon the fact that different pitches could be produced by placing their hand at different places on the ektara, they might have thought of placing some frets. The four fretted veena is the one which was designed to produce the udaatha, anudaatha and swahitha swaras or notes in the chanting of veda mantras. Cut to 16th century, Ramamatya, author of Swaramela Kalanidhi, constructed a veena with six frets and four strings. He theorized the 14-tone scale and 12-tone tuning, so this veena of his sufficed for the demonstration of the theory that he propounded. Govindacharya conceived the 72 melakartha paddhati, and he conceptualised the shape and construction of the veena as we know it today, to substantiate and visually demonstrate his theory.

Jeyaraaj & Jaysri

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 25 Jul 2007, 02:12

Venajj,
THANKS!

veenajj · Post by **veenajj** » 25 Jul 2007, 10:11

You are welcome, Shri Shankar.

thanjavooran · Post by **thanjavooran** » 25 Jul 2007, 12:11

An article in Panmalar tamil monthly , on vipulanandha by ms Surya ramanan is quite interesting. following is the extract from it.

Silapathikaram tamil epic talks about veena the yazh. Ezham born tamil scholar Mayil vakanan later known as Vipulanandha made an extensive study on this and brought out a book on [evolution of] yazh. In Aragetrukathai of silapathikaram different types of yazh are dealt with.
1. mulari yazh
2 sruthi veenai
3 Parijatha veenai
4 Chathurthandi veenai
These instruments were made stictly as per the description and displayed in a procession organised by Karanthai Tamil Sangam in connection with the release of that book on yazh on 21st june 1947. Veena exponent thiru sivanandham pillai played the sruthi veenai to the surprise and appreciation of everybody.