The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c11.19

c11.19

The earliest instrument played with a bow was called râbanastra or râbanastrana. What this instrument was like is rather doubtful, but at the present time there exists in Ceylon a primitive instrument played with a bow, called "vinavah," which has two strings of different kinds: one made of a species of flax and the other of horsehair, which is the material also of the string of the bow, which with bells attached to it is used as a fiddle-stick. The hollow part of this instrument is half a cocoa-nut shell polished, covered with the dried skin of a lizard, and perforated below.⁵