Veena

The veena is the oldest named Indian stringed instrument and the one Saraswati is shown holding. The Carnatic form, the Saraswati veena, is carved from a single block of jackwood with a resonator at each end, twenty four fixed brass frets set in wax, four playing strings and three drone strings played with the little finger of the right hand. It is capable of the full ornamentation of the music because a note can be pulled a long way along a fret, and a veena player can produce a phrase of several notes without striking the string again, which is held to be the closest an instrument gets to the voice.

Played seated with the instrument across the lap, the gourd on the left thigh and the neck sloping up. The left hand stops and pulls the strings; the right plucks with a wire plectrum on the index and middle fingers and plays the drones with the little finger. The gamakas, the ornaments that define a Carnatic raga, are produced by deflecting the string along the fret, so a single fret may give three or four notes. Thanjavur is the centre of making, and an instrument carved from one block, the ekanda veena, is prized above a jointed one.

Begun at seven or eight, after some vocal training in most schools, because the instrument is expected to imitate the voice. The right hand plectrum technique and the left hand pulling are drilled separately for a year or more. The fingertips of the left hand harden and callus over the first two years. Two hours of practice a day is the usual expectation for a serious student and a decade brings a first concert. Veena players almost always learn to sing the compositions as well.

The Thanjavur and Mysore schools are the two usually distinguished, differing in posture, plectrum use and the weight given to gamaka. Mysore favoured a style with more plain notes and the Thanjavur line a heavily ornamented one. Veena Dhanammal in the early twentieth century established a line whose style, slow and sparse, is still named for her and is kept by her descendants. The instrument has lost ground in concert programming to the violin, which practitioners discuss frankly as a problem of amplification and audience expectation rather than of the instrument.

Tamil Nadu

Thanjavur is the centre of making and the Thanjavur school of playing, with the Dhanammal line still kept by her descendants in Chennai.

Karnataka

The Mysore school and the Mysore court patronage produced its own style and a line of court veena players.

Andhra and Telangana

Played in the same concert tradition, with Andhra makers at Bobbili producing a distinct instrument.

North India

The rudra veena is the north Indian instrument of the same family, used in dhrupad and played by very few.

Deities

• Saraswati
• Siva

Festivals

• Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami
• Navaratri begins
• Vasant Panchami · Saraswati Puja

Temples

• Koothanur Maha Saraswathi Temple

Related arts

• Carnatic music
• Mridangam