How old is the rudra veena?

Tradition holds that the sage Bharata created the rudra veena, and that origin remains a legend. Alain Daniélou, in his UNESCO Collection notes, calls it the most ancient Indian fretted zither; its oldest known examples, from the 6th to 10th century, have one gourd. He adds that many 15th- and 16th-century paintings depict it. Today it belongs to dhrupad, carried by players of the Dagar and Khandarbani traditions.