From Temple Stone to Thanjavur: The Story of the Veena
Walk into almost any school, library or music hall in India and you may find her picture: the goddess Saraswati, dressed in white, seated on a lotus, a swan beside her and a long stringed instrument resting across her body. Her hands are poised on its strings as if about to play. That instrument is the veena, and for many Indians it is the very symbol of learning and music.
Yet the veena Saraswati holds in modern pictures is only the latest chapter of a very long story. The word veena appears in some of India's oldest texts, and over two thousand years it has named harps, stick zithers and fretted lutes. Following that word through history means following the story of Indian music itself.
A Word Older Than the Instrument
In the ancient Sanskrit literature, vina (veena) was a general name for stringed instruments. It is mentioned in Vedic texts, where music accompanied ritual, and in the great epics. The Natyashastra, the classic treatise on drama and music traditionally attributed to the sage Bharata, discusses the vina in detail. Its date is debated, but it is usually placed somewhere around the turn of the first millennium, give or take a few centuries.
The vinas of this early period were very different from today's. Many seem to have been arched harps, with strings stretched from a curved neck to a boat-shaped body. One of the most striking pieces of evidence comes from the gold coins of the Gupta emperor Samudragupta, in the fourth century CE, which show the king seated and playing such a harp. Indian mythology adds other images: the sage Narada wanders the worlds with his vina, singing the praise of the god Vishnu.
Stone Musicians: The Veena in Temple Sculpture
Over the following centuries, the harp gradually faded from Indian music, and a new kind of veena took its place: the stick zither, a long stick or tube with strings stretched along it and one or more gourds attached to amplify the sound. Temple sculpture across India, from the early medieval period onwards, shows gods, celestial musicians and human players holding these instruments, often with a gourd resting on the shoulder.
Musical treatises describe a growing variety of veenas. The Sangita Ratnakara, written by Sharngadeva in the thirteenth century, is a key source that lists and describes many kinds, including single-stringed and fretted types. By this time the veena had become more than an instrument: it was the model musicians used to think about pitch, scale and theory.
Saraswati and the Sacred Instrument
The association of the veena with Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, speech and the arts, gave the instrument a special place in Indian culture. Images of Saraswati with a veena became widespread, and the instrument came to stand for learning itself. In South India especially, the veena is treated with reverence, honoured during the festival of Saraswati Puja and often called the instrument of the goddess. This sacred aura is one reason the veena has kept a dignity and seriousness that set it apart from many other instruments.
The Thanjavur Court and the Saraswati Veena
The instrument now called the Saraswati veena took its classic form in South India. A key chapter in its story unfolds at the court of the Nayak rulers of Thanjavur, in present-day Tamil Nadu, in the early seventeenth century. Tradition credits Govinda Dikshita, a minister and scholar under Raghunatha Nayak, with developing a veena with a full set of fixed frets that allowed every note of the scale to be played. Historians note that the instrument evolved gradually, but the Thanjavur court clearly played a central role.
Govinda Dikshita's son, Venkatamakhin, wrote the treatise Chaturdandi Prakashika in the seventeenth century. In it he set out a scheme of 72 parent scales, the basis of the melakarta system that later organised the ragas of Carnatic music. Theory and instrument grew up side by side, and the fretted veena made the new scale system easy to see and play.
Thanjavur became, and remains, the most famous centre of veena making, with craftsmen carving the instrument from jackfruit wood. In later centuries the veena was played by great figures of Carnatic music. The composer Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775–1835), one of the three celebrated composers of the tradition, was himself a veena player. Veena Dhanammal (1867–1938) of Madras became legendary for her intimate, deeply expressive style, while the court of Mysore nurtured its own distinguished line of players. In the twentieth century, artists such as S. Balachander and Emani Sankara Sastri took the veena to new audiences through concerts, radio and recordings.
The Rudra Veena of the North
In North India, the veena tradition took a different path. The rudra veena, also called the been, kept the older stick-zither design: a long tube of wood or bamboo with two large gourds, played seated with one gourd resting on the shoulder. Named after Rudra, a form of the god Shiva, it was long regarded as the most prestigious instrument of North Indian court music.
The rudra veena is closely linked to dhrupad, the oldest surviving form of Hindustani classical music, with its slow, meditative exploration of a raga. Its deep, resonant voice suits that style perfectly. By the twentieth century it had become rare, kept alive by a small number of masters. Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, of the famous Dagar family of dhrupad musicians, redesigned and championed the instrument, and Ustad Asad Ali Khan was another of its great twentieth-century exponents. Their students, including Zia Mohiuddin's son Bahauddin Dagar, continue the tradition today.
The Veena Today
The Saraswati veena remains a central instrument of Carnatic music, heard in concert halls, temples and homes across South India and among Indian communities worldwide. Players also experiment with electric pickups, fusion projects and film music, while the rudra veena has found a small but devoted new audience. Thanjavur's veena makers still carve instruments much as their predecessors did.
You can also get a feel for the instrument straight away: HarmonyHub lets you play a virtual veena free in your browser, with Saraswati and rudra veena sounds and the swaras Sa to Ni on your keyboard. For more of the subcontinent's music, explore our Indian instruments.
The Instrument of the Goddess
Few instruments carry as much history in a single word. The veena has been a harp on a king's coin, a gourd-backed zither in temple stone, the fretted voice of the Thanjavur court and the meditative been of the North. Through all its changes, it has kept its place in Saraswati's hands, as a symbol of music and learning.