PLATE III.
SUR-S'RINGĀRA. LARGE SITAR.
THE instrument shown upon the right of the plate is the Sitar.[1] This specimen has been adorned with paintings, representing the avatars or appearances of the god Vishnu, and is the work of a Poona maker. The sitars commonly found are only different from this in that the bodies are unpainted.
The sitar is called also Sundari, and is perhaps the commonest of all the stringed instruments of India, being much admired. Its use in Southern India is not so frequent as in the Deccan and farther North, and is chiefly confined to those who practise the Hindustani in preference to the Karnatik system of music.
In general appearance the sitar is not unlike the tamburi, described later.
The finger-board is about three inches wide, the frets are of brass or silver, eighteen (sometimes sixteen) in number, and flatly elliptical; they are secured to the finger-board by pieces of gut passing underneath—this arrangement admits of their being shifted so as to produce intervals of any particular scale (thát), hence the capability of the instrument is naturally limited.
- ↑ The invention of the sitar is commonly credited to Ameer Khusru, of Delhi, in the twelfth century. Captain Willard states that the instrument derives its name from si, (
Indic characters), signifying in Persian three, and tar, (Indic characters), a string, as that number was commonly used.
