sitar

The sitar is often said to have been developed in the thirteenth century by from a member of the family of Indian musical instruments called the tritantri veena and to have been named by him after the Persian . The sitar is, like the setar, a member of the lute family while the north Indian veena is a , but it shares the veena's resonating gourds and sympathetic strings. Amir Khusrau does not mention the sitar but he does mention the and, by the mid 18th century, Indian tanburs were referred to as sitars. During the time of Moghul rule Persian lutes were played at court and may have provided a basis of the sitar. However, there is no physical evidence for the sitar until the time of the collapse of the empire.

The sitar is a predominantly used in , where it has been ubiquitous in since the . It derives its resonance from , a long hollow neck and a chamber. Used throughout the , particularly in Northern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, the sitar became known in the western world through the work of Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Sitar is the most popular stringed instrument of India and has been in use for about 700 years. It is fashioned from a seasoned