Sarang

Maharaja Sarang Dev of Kashmir is said to be the inventor of Sarang. It is a
bowed, short-necked string instrument. The playing strings of the Sarang are
stopped with fingernails of the left hand. It’s popular because of features like,
its adaptability quality to a wide range of musical styles; its tenability; it’s able
to produce a wide range of tonal nuance, and so on. The Sarang also has a
unique and amazing capacity to imitate the inflections of the human voice.

It is stringed musical instrument played with bow and it is in vogue in three types:

Kashmiri Sarang

• This is the first type, smaller in size and is used in Kashmir under the name of Sarang, which as per a belief is the invention of Maharaja Sarang Dev’s time( Sarang Dev was a king of Kashmir). According to B.C. Deva Sarangi came to Kashmir with the influence of Muslims. It is played with a bow made of block of wood to which hair of the tail of horse are fixed at both the ends. The entire body is hollow from inside with two combined parts. The upper part serves the purpose of a fingerboard.

Besides Kashmir, in the hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh, the playing of this Sarang is    common. It is also popular among the tribals of Bihar. In northern India, Sarang, besides  being played with the bow-shaped stick is also played with ‘Kanishtha’ (the little finger) and ‘anamika’ (the finger between the middle and the little finger) of left hand. The playing on this instrument is known as ‘Purva’.

• The second type is slightly bigger in size than the kashmiri Sarang and is mostly used in Bengal.
• The third size is full size and standard Sarangi used in Indian classical music.