বীণা
वीणा
দেবী সরস্বতীর দিব্য কণ্ঠস্বর
সরস্বতী বীণা কর্ণাটক সংগীতের সবচেয়ে শ্রদ্ধেয় তন্ত্রী যন্ত্র, দেবী সরস্বতীর নামে নামকরণ করা এবং দক্ষিণ ভারতীয় শাস্ত্রীয় প্রকাশের জন্য অপরিহার্য গমক উৎপাদনের জন্য ২৪টি ফ্রেট সহ কাঁঠাল কাঠের শরীর রয়েছে।
History & Evolution
The word is far older than the instrument. Sanskrit vina appears in Vedic texts and gives vainika, the word for a veena player. In early usage it covered stringed instruments in general. Early Indian sculpture shows harp-like, seven-stringed and single-string veenas. One study of the iconography traces a change in the instrument Saraswati holds, from a harp-like vipanchi in a 6th-century Nalanda bronze to the Thanjavur lute, which late 19th-century paintings by Ravi Varma and the calendar art that followed made her standard attribute.
The present form took shape at the court of Thanjavur in the early 17th century, in the reign of Raghunatha Nayaka, himself a veena player. Earlier veenas carried fewer than twenty movable frets; the Thanjavur design fixed 24, twelve to the octave. Sources credit it to Raghunatha, to his minister Govinda Dikshita, or to both. A Press Information Bureau feature, drawing on S. Krishnaswami's Musical Instruments of India (1993), says that fixing the frets opened the way for the 72-melakarta scheme of raga classification, which Govinda Dikshita's son Venkatamakhin set out in the Chaturdandi Prakasika.
- Vedic period
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The word vina
The Sanskrit word vina already appears in Vedic prose, in the Taittiriya Samhita and the Shatapatha Brahmana. Monier-Williams's Sanskrit dictionary cites both texts for the word and marks its derivation as doubtful. - Up to the 12th century
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Frets appear in temple sculpture
Accounts differ on when frets first appear in sculpture. A 2023 Open magazine feature says early veenas were fretless, with the first fretted image at a 12th-century Belur temple. The scholar Ragini Trivedi sees frets earlier, at Ajanta and the Harshat Mata temple, Abhaneri. - 17th - 19th Century
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Thanjavur court and its treatises
Nayaka and then Maratha rulers of Thanjavur patronised music. Tradition credits Raghunatha Nayaka with the Sangita Sudha; Venkatamakhin wrote the Chaturdandi Prakasika and Tulaja Maharaja the Sangita Saramrita. That milieu shaped Muttuswami Dikshitar (1775-1835), born in Thanjavur district and trained in veena playing. - 20th century to present
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Modern Era
Indian government sources name Veena Dhanammal, the Karaikudi brothers, Emani Sankara Sastri and S. Balachander among the notable 20th-century players. Since 2013 Thanjavur Veenai (Tanjore Veena) has been a registered Geographical Indication, protecting the name for instruments made around Thanjavur.
Technical Aspects
Fret and Gamaka System
The hollow neck (dandi) carries 24 fixed frets (mettu) of metal, usually brass, set in hardened beeswax mixed with charcoal. The player raises pitch by pulling a string sideways across a fret, which tightens it; slides and finger flicks add further ornaments. A Press Information Bureau feature summarises C. V. Raman's view that the curved frets and string ends give the player continuous control of string tension.
String Configuration
The veena carries seven steel strings. Four run over the frets and carry the melody. Three drone strings, the talam strings, run at the side of the neck; the little finger of the right hand strikes them to sound the reference pitch (sruti) and mark the rhythm (laya).
Jackwood Resonator
Makers hollow the large round resonator (kudam) from jackwood and carve the tuning end as a yali, a lion-faced mythical creature. They carve an ekantha veena from a single block and build an ottu or sada veena from jointed pieces. The small resonator under the neck (sorakkai) began as a gourd and today comes in papier-mache or fibre.
দক্ষতার পথে যাত্রা
এই শাখায় দক্ষ হতে এই সুপরিকল্পিত পথ অনুসরণ করুন
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Posture and plucking
Sit cross-legged with the veena almost level across the lap, the small resonator on the left thigh and the main body on the floor beyond the right. The left arm passes under the neck to stop the strings on the frets. The right palm rests on the edge of the body; the index and middle fingers pluck the main strings and the little finger plays the drones.
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Sarali varisai, janta varisai and alankarams
Carnatic training starts with sarali varisai: basic note patterns in the lower and upper registers at three speeds, as in the CBSE vocal syllabus. Janta varisai then drill paired notes, and sapta tala alankarams set patterns to seven talas (rhythmic cycles). Geetams, simple learning songs that Purandara Dasa created to introduce talas, come next.
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Gamaka and Ornamentation
This stage covers the named gamakas. Kampitam swings a note between two neighbouring pitches; jaru glides from one note to another. Lists of gamakas vary, and one Carnatic glossary counts more than ten types. In Class XI the CBSE syllabus for Carnatic melodic instruments asks students to produce the important gamakas of their chosen instrument.
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Repertoire Development
Instrumentalists learn the vocal repertoire. The CBSE syllabus for Carnatic melodic instruments sets an Adi tala varnam in two speeds, kritis, a jatiswaram and a swarajati in Class X; more Adi tala varnams and kritis or kirtanas in Adi, Rupaka and Chapu talas in Class XI; and an Ata tala varnam with tillanas in Class XII. Students also tune their instrument and describe its construction and history.
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Performance and Improvisation
Manodharma sangeetam, the improvised side of Carnatic music, covers raga alapana, tanam (rhythmic elaboration of the raga, by tradition without percussion), neraval (melodic variation on one line of a composition's text) and kalpana swaram (improvised note passages that return to the composition). These culminate in ragam-tanam-pallavi. CBSE students at this stage play brief alapanas, kalpana swaras at two speeds and a simple pallavi in three speeds.