A Punjab-style example

The Stroud District museum’s nineteenth-century sarinda, inventory 1958.181, is described in its MIMO catalogue record as typical of the Punjab region. Its heart-shaped outline surrounds a deep, waisted body, with a short neck and substantial pegbox. The lower part of the hollow body is covered with parchment. The catalogue records four main gut strings and seventeen smaller pegs for sympathetic strings, which add resonance. Five of those pegs sit along the neck, where the strings pass through holes in the unfretted fingerboard. A brass tailpiece anchors the strings at the bottom. Some strings and the wooden bridge are missing. Those losses matter when imagining its former sound: the surviving object preserves the arrangement and workmanship, while the catalogue’s Punjab identification is a regional style attribution rather than a documented workshop address.[1]

The two-part body

Joep Bor places Punjab sarindas within a wider group sharing a short neck, deep head and a body divided into two chambers. The broader upper chamber is open at the front; the lower chamber carries a skin covering. He describes a fingerboard extending into the upper chamber in western regional examples, helping distinguish their construction from the more box-shaped sarangi group. His account includes three playing strings and variable sympathetic string arrangements. This comparison makes the open upper body a useful feature to notice while allowing instruments to differ in their string counts. Bor’s groups are analytical categories based on related shapes; they should be read as a way to compare objects, rather than as one compulsory model for makers.[2]

Another arrangement in a museum

The Metropolitan Museum’s late nineteenth-century Indian sarinda, object 46.34.42a,b, offers another arrangement: four melody strings and twenty-four sympathetic strings. Its description follows those smaller strings through the lower bridge into fingerboard holes. The catalogue again describes a body carved from one block, with parchment covering the lower section. Its broad India attribution supplies a comparison without identifying this particular instrument as Punjab-made.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Stroud District (Cowle) Museum; catalogue reproduced by MINIM-UK and MIMO. Sarinda, inventory 1958.181 ↗museum object catalogue reproduced in institutional aggregator · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Inventory 1958.181, complete Description reproduced from Stroud District(Cowle) Museum/MINIM-UK; Punjab style, four main strings, seventeen sympathetic pegs and missing parts. Accessed 2026-11-01.Actual complete museum description read in MIMO. The Punjab attribution concerns the example’s style; its missing strings and bridge are recorded. Query and language variants describe the same object.Return to A Punjab-style example, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Joep Bor; National Centre for the Performing Arts Quarterly Journal XV(3–4), XVI(1). The Voice of the Sarangi: An illustrated history of bowing in India ↗scholarly organological study · Source date: 1986–1987 · Locator: PDF pp.14–15 / printed pp.12–13, analytical grouping and Sarindas section, open upper/covered lower body and Punjab regional examples. Accessed 2026-11-01.Actual title, publication data, contents and relevant morphology pages of the 190-page scan read through OCR. Descriptive distinctions are attributed; speculative ancestry and hierarchical cultural labels are excluded.Return to The two-part body, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sārindā, object 46.34.42a,b ↗primary museum object catalogue · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Object46.34.42a,b, curatorial paragraph and Artwork Details: late 19th century, India, four melody/twenty-four sympathetic strings. Accessed 2026-11-01.Actual curatorial description and object metadata read. The catalogue identifies India, rather than a Punjab manufacture place. Its speculative Central Asian derivation and differing wood labels are not used.Return to Another arrangement in a museum, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-CUL-0061 · English edition · human review not performed