The _sârangi_, or the common fiddle of Southern India (Fig. 14_c_) has a wooden body hollowed out of a single block, a parchment belly, three strings of thick gut, and usually fifteen sympathetic strings of wire, tuned chromatically. Sometimes a fourth principal string of wire, called _luruj_, is added. It is played with a bow, the instrument being held vertically, head uppermost; the tone resembling that of the viola. The _sârangi_ of Northern India, usually carved with a conventional swan-shaped head, has a rounded body, and possesses a lesser number of sympathetic wires. The _sârinda_, or Bengal fiddle (Fig. 14_a_), another of the few bowed instruments of India, consists of a hollow wooden body, usually decorated with carving, a curious parchment belly covering only the lower half of the body, and three strings either of gut or silk. The Hindus divided their musical scale into several intervals smaller than our modern semitones. They adopted twenty-two intervals called _s’ruti_ in the compass of an octave, which may therefore be compared to our chromatic intervals. As the frets of the _vina_ are movable the performer can easily regulate them according to the scale, or mode, which he requires for his music. The harp has long been obsolete. If some Hindu drawings of it can be relied upon, it had at an early time a triangular frame and was in construction as well as in shape and size almost identical with the Assyrian harp. The Hindus claim to have invented the violin bow. They maintain that the _ravanastra_, one of their old instruments played with the bow, was invented about 5,000 years ago by Ravana, a mighty king of Ceylon. However this may be, there is a great probability that the fiddle-bow originated in Hindustan; because Sanskrit scholars inform us that there are names for it in works which cannot be less than from 1,500 to 2,000 years old. The non-occurrence of any instrument played with a bow on the monuments of the nations of antiquity is by no means so sure a proof as has generally been supposed, that the bow was unknown. The fiddle in its primitive condition must have been a poor contrivance. It probably was despised by players who could produce better tones with greater facility by twanging the strings with their fingers, or with a plectrum. Thus it may have remained through many centuries without experiencing any material improvement. It must also be borne in mind that the monuments transmitted to us chiefly represent historical events, religious ceremonies, and royal entertainments. On such occasions instruments of a certain kind only were used, and these we find represented; while others, which may have been even more common, never occur. In 2,000 years’ time people will possibly maintain that some highly perfected instrument popular with them was entirely unknown to us, because it is at present in so primitive a condition that no one hardly notices it.