the accompaniment. In the left hand is held a shell which is moved to and fro upon the strings, by which means all Indian musical embellishments can be rendered with great taste and fineness. In the latter method, it is played with two felt-covered sticks and the sound is decidedly like that of a piano.'1[1]
This instrument is the forefather of the modern piano, which is nothing more than an enlarged svaramandala in which the strings are struck by mechanical hammers. This instrument, which M. Fredalis calls 'a grand old instrument, whose sweet tones touch the very chords of the heart,' is now forgotten and unused except in a very few places. Its modern representative is the Qanun or Arramin, the Indian dulcimer, which is of Persian origin and has only thirty-seven strings, containing three octaves. Some of them are of brass and some of steel. The strings are tuned differently for each raga, so as to reproduce the proper intervals of that raga, and are always played with plectra. Instead of the shell in the left hand, the performer to-day has a small iron ring, with which he produces the various graces. One hearer likened the tone of this instrument to that of an old clavichord.
The Taush or Mayuri is the peacock fiddle. It is very similar to the sitar and is really a kind of dilruba. It takes its names from the peacock-like resonator.
The Indian Museum, Calcutta, has an interesting collection of primitive stringed instruments containing many others in addition to those given above. None of these primitive instruments are in use to-day, but they are interesting as showing how the present-day stringed instruments developed. The first instrument was the bow with its twanging string, said to be still used on certain occasions by the Nairs of Travancore. Then a number of strings of different lengths were fastened to the same bow. It was then found that by stretching these strings over a hollow body the sound was increased. We find a Burmese instrument with the strings stretched over a hollow body shaped like a boat. One of these specimens has the
- ↑ 1 From an article by M. Fredalis in Times of India, Bombay.
