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RAVANASTRON
, an See also:Indian stringed See also:instrument played with a See also:bow, used by wandering pilgrims
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A See also:Hindu tradition affirms that the musical bow was invented before 3000 B.C. by Ravanon, See also: |
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This article seems to suffer from a few inaccuracies. The correct name of the king was 'Ravan' and not 'Ravanon' - refer to any ancient Sanskrit Text such as the Ramayana. I Sanskrit grammar, the suffiz 'am' (here referred to as 'on') is used for inanimate objects only. For masculine nouns (such as 'Ravan', the correct suffix is 'aha' or 'uha' ('u' as in 'but')). Secondly, 'Ravanastron' (referred to in this article) is not a proper word in Sanskrit at all. As used in this article, it appears to be a compound ('Sandhi' in Sanskrit) of two words - 'Ravana' and 'Astram' (incorrectly changed to 'astron' in the article). 'Astram' means 'instrument', 'implement', 'tool' or 'weapon'. Care must be talek to note, however, that its meaning 'instrument', does not mean 'musical instrument'. Thirdly, there is not a single ancient or medieval musical text in Sanskrit that contains a reference to 'Ravanostron'. This strange word seems to be a concoction from a less-than'authentic source. In the folklore of western India, there is reference to a bowed instrument known as 'Ravanhatta'. 'Hatta' refers to something used (or played) with the hands. 'Ravan', of course, is the name of the King of Lanka, of Ramayana fame. The exact location of Lanka is still the subject of debate, with the people of modern day Sri Lanka (erstwhile Ceylon) claiming that island was the Lanka of Ramayana. But other scholars have advocated other places (such as the land to the south of the confluence of Ganga and Jamuna in central India) as Lanka. Anyway, it is not the location of Lanka that is the subject of this article, so this interesting debate is not persued here. What is interesting is that Ravanhatta is a bowed stringed instrument and there is a bowed stringed instrument used even today in rural Rajasthan of India people still call Ravanhatta.
The ravanhattha has just one playing string, made of horse hair, on the right side of the instrument. There is also a metal reference string on the left side. The playing string passes over the bridge. The (up to 13) additional metal strings pass through the bridge and are sympathetic i.e. they are not bowed or stopped but resonate in sympathy with the playing string. Several strings are not bowed at the same time as stated here.
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