The first painting to feature a sarangi player dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. It depicts a left-handed fakir, playing his instrument under a tree, accompanied by a musician playing a dhol (or duhul). Four men, one of them a prince (perhaps Dara Shukoh), are listening to the music. The painting shows a number of relevant details. The sarangi has a box shaped resonator with a broad stringholder at the bottom, a long, wide neck, a peg box with an arch-shaped opening, and, on top of it, a characteristic decoration. It has four playing strings, six or seven resonance strings, a nut and a bridge.

Its resemblance to the present-day Gujaratan sarangi is indeed remarkable. The main difference is that the belly of the latter instrument is slightly waisted. Listening to its last interpreter, Hayat Mohmad Langa, we can easily imagine ourselves hearing the sarangi player in the painting made over three and a half centuries ago. Time seems to have stopped. Was he perhaps Allah Dad Dhadhi? He must certainly have been a famous musician, because he features in at least three paintings, each in a slightly different setting. Whoever the sarangi player was and wherever his instrument originated—in Rajasthan, Gujarat, the Punjab or Uttar Pradesh—it is obvious that his sarangi was a sophisticated bowed instrument which, for centuries to come, would survive virtually unchanged.

The early presence of sympathetic (or resonance) strings on this sarangi deserves our attention. In Europe, they probably appeared first on a lyra viol, and, according to John Playford (1652), such a viol with wire sympathetic strings was an invention of the composer Daniel Farrant. Later, in the 18th century, they were a common feature of the viola d’amore and the baryton. The Norwegian Hardangerfele also has four resonance strings.

Curt Sachs, one of the few musicologists who has paid attention to this subject, writes: “Sympathetic strings had come to England from the Near East apparently in the sixteenth century.” Speculating about their place of origin, he believes that the Indians adopted them from the Persians. Yet in Persian, Central Asian and Middle-Eastern instruments they rarely occur, while in India, they are commonly found in almost all stringed instruments. In all probability, sarangi players were the first to realise that the addition of a number of wire strings under the main strings produced a silvery echo, and it is not impossible that this idea was first adopted by a Western instrument maker, after he saw a sarangi brought to Europe by a traveller in the 16th century.

Singing and playing bards

Several other Mughal paintings from the 17th century depict box-shaped sarangis. In one of these, a Muslim saint lies in front of a hermitage while attendants prepare and offer him bhang, and a fiddler creates a congenial atmosphere. In front of another hermitage, three musicians play together, a binkar, a sarangiya and a drummer.

Another fascinating painting shows a singing and dancing sarangi player with a dervish, who appears to be in a state of trance. The three-stringed sarangi resembles a chikara but is lacking in fine detail. The painter seems to have forgotten to complete the instrument, since the peg box is missing. A similar type of sarangi is seen in the hands of a young musician who entertains a saint, probably Kabir, shown weaving. Here the instrument is carefully depicted.

A wonderful, bowed instrument played by a singing ascetic also appears in a number of paintings. It has a large belly and a short neck, and slightly resembles a sarinda. More fanciful is the instrument which is being played before a sadhu, sitting on a tiger skin in front of his hermitage. The resonator of this instrument consists of two identical parts, and it has two bridges. Whether such an instrument really existed or was just part of the imagination of the artist, we will never know.

Other Mughal paintings from the 17th century show different types of sarangis, but all that these paintings have in common is the setting. The fiddler always sings and plays in the vicinity of holy men, Muslim or Hindu. His sarangi is small, light and portable, and this, combined with its expressive sound quality, makes it an ideal instrument to accompany devotional songs. Is it a coincidence that Lakshmanagani, in 1145, also talks about the sarangi accompanying religious songs?

For many centuries, the wandering street musician or mendicant with a sarangi in his hands was a familiar sight in the North Indian countryside. Even today, one can encounter a baba singing ballads about the life and deeds of Lord Shiva (bam lahara), or a Bhartrhari yogi playing his sarangi. “They sing the song of a Gopi chand and Maigan-nath and the teachings of Bhartrhari. No Hindu domestic festival is complete unless these Bhartrharis come and sing their songs. They use the ochre coloured clothes of the sannyasins. But they are by religion Mahomedans. They seem to be the descendants of their yogi forefathers and have inherited their yogi songs as well,” writes S. Das Gupta.

Until recently, according to D. C. Vedi, the sarangi was very frequently heard in the temples of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. “It was played with kirtan and bhajan, and also with classical songs. Most of the names of these artistes are now forgotten. but I remember a very good sarangi player, Shri Ram of Kotah, who always played in the Nathadwara mandir. He was a disciple of Fida Hussain Khan, an uncle of the late Faiyaz Khan.”

Stringed instruments played an important role in the devotional music (kirtan) of the Sikhs. “The songs of Guru Nanak were sung to the accompaniment of the music of the rabab and the rhythm of mridang,” writes Bhai Gurdas. Mardana, a Muslim, was his famous lute-playing companion, whilst at the time of the second, third and fourth Gurus, professional rababis were also appointed to sing and play at the court. But, according to Max Arthur Macauliffe, ‘two-stringed violins’ were used in the court of Guru Angad (1504-1552) as well. Under Guru Arjan (1563-1606), professional lutanists were replaced by non-professional musicians (ragis). He himself was a great singer and played the sarinda. His successor, Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), was a generous patron of music. “He established a new class of singers called dhadhi. They sang of heroic deeds of old warriors and thereby inspired the Guru’s soldiers. Bhai Abdullah was a great devotee of the sixth Guru. Abdullah played on the sarangi while Natha played on the dhadh.”

Thus, in the Punjab, the sarinda and sarangi rose in importance during the 16th and 17th centuries. Sikh Gurus and other open-minded saint-singers in Northern India had discovered that fiddlers were the ideal musicians to sing and play their spiritual songs. Sufism and the bhakti movement flourished and, in both of them, singing and dancing were essential means for bringing about a direct experience of God. “The new devotional religion ... fostered ideas of brotherhood and equality before the loving Lord, and its saints, drawn from all levels of society, proclaimed that in bhakti, caste had no meaning.” With Ramananda, Kabir, Raidas, Tulsidas, Dadu, Mira Bai and Surdas, the devotional movement reached its peak in Hindi speaking areas. This probably explains why low-caste sarangi players in the 16th century (or perhaps earlier) began specialising in devotional songs, and why the first sarangi players depicted in the paintings always stand face to face with a holy man.

Dhadhis, professional minstrels

However, not all fiddlers were yogis, fakirs or pious devotees of God. Travelling overland in Afghanistan (immediately after crossing the border of Baluchistan), Robert Coverte had a rather awkward experience on the first day of April 1610: “... earely in the morning, and about breake of day wee met with tenne or twelve men playing Fiddles, as if they had come in friendly maner to welcome us, but indeed they were no better then Theeves that intended to rob and pillege us, for by the Sun rising wee were beset round with them and their companions, whose certaine number wee could not discerne nor know.”

Writing about the brave Rajputs, the famous Venetian traveller Niccolao Manucci, who spent a major part of his life in India, from around 1656 to 1717, observes: “When they draw near to the enemy, their musicians begin to sing songs in a loud voice, with a violin accompaniment in praise of their courage. These musicians are also on horse-back and well-armed, all drunk with opium, their eyes flaming and red ... I have sometimes seen some of them so impatient that on hearing the violins strike up, though the enemy was still far off, they rode out of their squadron, and, putting their horses to their full speed, galloped like madmen into the middle of the foemen, and there sacrificed their lives.”

Were the ‘fiddles’ or ‘violins’ perhaps sarindas, and the Rajput musicians dhadhis? Richard Francis Burton, writing in 1851 about Sindhi minstrels, provides part of the answer: “In former times they used to accompany the head of the house to battle, armed with sword and shield, with the surindo or rebec in hand, praising the brave, and overwhelming cowards with satire and abuse ...”

We have seen that Punjabi dhadhis at the time of Guru Hargobind were appointed to sing about the heroic deeds of warriors, and that the sarinda and sarangi had taken the place of the rabab. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, to read that according to Abu’l Fazl, “the dhadhis are the Punjabi singers who play upon the dhadda and the kingara. They chiefly chant the praises of heroes in the field of battle and lend fresh spirit to the fight.” There seems to be little doubt now that this particular kingra was not an instrument resembling the veena or the present-day Punjabi ‘king’, but a bowed instrument akin to the sarinda, which was also used by the Pathan, Baluchi, Sindhi and Rajput minstrels accompanying the armies. Either this instrument was referred to by several names and indigenous writers preferred to use the mythological word kingra, or the terms sarinda, saroz, chikara, etc., are of more recent date.

In any case, the fact that Guru Amardas (1479-1574) calls himself a dhadhi, a minstrel of God, demonstrates that these professional singers and fiddlers were quite established by this time. Surdas also mentions them several times, and, in the Ain-i-Akbari, five dhadhis are listed among the principal musicians of Akbar’s court; four of them were singers and one played the kama (long trumpet). In the court of Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1580-1627), the dhadhis were second in rank. In the words of one of his songs: “Atai, dhadhi and gunijan, the three classes of musicians, should be regarded as the master of the three worlds, the three-eyed god, Trilochan. Though their languages may be different, yet the object of both Muslims and non-Muslims is the same.”

According to Faquirullah, dhadhis were the oldest community of musicians, and originally Rajputs. They sang karkha, which was “composed in four to eight lines to sing the praises of the warlords, the brave soldiers, and to narrate the affairs of battles and war.” He also informs us that the Punjabi dhadhis played on the dhadh (a small-sized dhol to which they owed their name), and sang heroic ballads called bar. They were sung by at least two persons; the ustad, who was the leader of the group, tunefully recited the opening lines while the shagirds (disciples) followed, sometimes repeating the lines, sometimes returning to the opening section. Faquirullah further portrays a number of famous dhadhis: the majority of them were singers and composers, others played the rabab, pakhawaj, daf and sarangi.

Summarising this evidence, it becomes clear that dhadhis were professional folk musicians from Rajputana and the Punjab who specialised in originally singing war songs and heroic ballads called karkha and bar, with the accompaniment of dhadh and kingra (sarinda?). “The dhadhi women,” adds Abu’l Fazl, the author of Ain-i-Akbari, “chiefly play on the daf and the duhul, and sing the dhurpad and the sohla on occasions of nuptial and birthday festivities in a very accomplished manner.” Other dhadhis played on instruments such as the rabab and sarangi, and part of their repertoire must have consisted of religious songs. That they were soloists in their own right is also indicated by the paintings. Thus, the sharp social distinction between dhadhis (later on mirasis) and kalawants, viz. accompanists and soloists, on which Daniel M. Neuman bases his interesting thesis titled ‘The Organisation of an Artistic Tradition’ seems to be of a more recent date.

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Pull Quote: For many centuries, the wandering street musician or mendicant with a sarangi in his hands was a familiar sight in the North Indian countryside

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This article first appeared in its entirety in the monograph, The Voice of the Sarangi, published as a combined issue of the NCPA Quarterly Journal in September, December 1986 and March 1987 (Volumes XV & XVI, Issues 3, 4 & 1).

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