What are the names of the different parts of a Veena/VÄ«á

[Sadaaprarudita]

Recently I was reading PÄÂÂ

[keerthi]

DOni is derived from drona meaning vessel and refers to the pot like end of the veena(kudam? in tamil )
Danda refers to the shaft of the veena and is called dandi even in hindi.

[Sadaaprarudita]

DOni is derived from drona meaning vessel and refers to the pot like end of the veena(kudam? in tamil )
Danda refers to the shaft of the veena and is called dandi even in hindi.

Thanks! In my understanding that in ancient India (or at least according to Natyashastra Ch.28), there were two types of veena: seven (the bow-harp type vipañcÄ«-vīṇÄÂÂ

[keerthi]

I don't know of a plectrum being used for the veena, but in the modern version of the chitraveena - the vichitraveena or GOtuvAdyam uses a short cylinder of wood, not to pluck the strings, but to press down the string at suitable positions on the dandi.
If the description of the veena mentions a drona, it must be the veena with a sphere at either end.

I remember seeing sculptures where a plectrum-like thing was used for the lute. will post if i remember where I saw them.

[srinivasrgvn]

I am sorry. I have removed my wrong information.

[vainika]

Veena string is plucked by the fingers(the index and the middle of the right hand). No Plectrum is used.

[img=50x50]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... zrabs.jpeg[/img]

Actually many (most?) performing veena artists do use plectra (see image above, courtesy wikipedia), quite similar to those used by performers of the sitAr and Iranian instruments. However the plectrum is co-planar with - and rests beneath - the finger when used for the veena, and at right angles when used for the sitAr. This placing is consistent with the uni-directional (downward) pluck of the former and bi-directional pluck of the latter. It is called nagam/naham in Tamil and mizrAb in Hindu/Urdu/Persian.

With ref. to the original discussion, vINA is a generic name for a group of stringed instruments. See below from a 2003 article on sawf.org by Sreevidhya Chandramouli and Amitava Sarkar:

In texts dating back to 1500 B.C., the word veena seems to denote any stringed instrument. This includes the single-stringed bow, lute, zither, harp, or a multi-stringed bow. Therefore it is unlikely that the modern veena originated in ancient times, although the seed of its ancestry may lie there. There are references to a bottle-gourd veena as far as 500 B.C. Lute or zither-styled fretless veena-s have been depicted in temple art of the sixth century A.D. Fretted veena-s emerged between the tenth and eleventh century A.D.

The veena in South India, is formally called the Saraswati veena, in its modern avatar. With a fret board of 24 frets spanning three and a half octaves, its origins can be traced to the Raghunatha Mela Veena developed by Govinda Dikshitar in the sixteenth century. Dikshitar provides the design of the instrument and its techniques in his book, the Sangeeta Sudha.

[srinivasrgvn]

vainika! thanks for that piece of information!
I thought "plectrum" means the small thing that they use for guitar to pluck.
I always address plectrum as "meettu". So, i didn't know its english meaning. Sorry!