The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c11.17

c11.17

The Persians still use an instrument called quanūn, much like that of the same name found now in India—a kind of dulcimer, strung with gut or wire strings, and played upon by plectra fastened to the fingers of the performers. This is a development of the kattyayana-vina or shata-tantri (*i.e.*, hundred-stringed) vina, as it was formerly called. This Persian quanūn, the prototype of the mediæval psaltery, afterwards became the santir, which has strings of wire in place of gut, and is played with two sticks, and in the West it eventually took the form of the dulcimer. Hence the origin of the complicated pianoforte of the present day can thus be traced to the Aryans. And so with many others. The violin, the flute, the oboe, the guitar, all have an Eastern origin. One of the earliest stringed instruments was called "pinaka," and had one string twanged by the fingers; its invention is ascribed to the god Siva.