India 20th century.

This fiddle, whose construction and playing are between the sarangi and the sitar, was described in the 19th century under the name of Kamancha, then subsequently, the name of Dilruba “which delights the heart” would have been awarded by the famous Punjabi musician Mahant Gajja Singh (18.. – 1922)

The body is hollowed out of a block of mulberry, over which a goat’s skin is stretched. It is extended by a large neck along which seventeen tuning pegs are fixed for the highest sympathetic strings, as well as twenty-one movable frets identical to those of sitars, for the playing strings.