Six more are in preparation: the dhad, the tiny hourglass drum of the ballad singers; the saranda, traditionally associated with Guru Arjan (an attribution we will label, as always); the vanjhli, the herdsman's flute that Ranjha plays in the Heer legend; the ghara, a clay water-pot played with ringed fingers — another hearth-object turned instrument; the sapp, the folding scissor-lattice of the bhangra stage; and the harmonium — the controversial one, a 19th-century European import that became the most ubiquitous instrument in Punjabi devotional and folk music alike, and displaced the taus, dilruba, and saranda on the way. It will not be omitted for being foreign; its story is exactly the kind of complexity this archive exists to handle, and the live debate within Gurmat Sangeet about restoring the string instruments will be described without taking a side.
Music · Instruments
The instruments of Punjab
Grouped by how the sound is made — strings, winds, percussion — because that is musicologically correct and it is the only honest grouping. A taxonomy by community would be false: the sarangi belongs to the Sikh dhadi, the Muslim mirasi, and the classical stage all at once. Group by sound, and the shared inheritance becomes visible on its own.
The gallery
Eight voices
Tumbi
ਤੂੰਬੀتُومبی
One string, one gourd, one flicking finger — the highest, thinnest, most instantly recognisable sound in Punjabi music.
Rabab
ਰਬਾਬرباب
A deep-bodied plucked lute of Central Asian origin — and the instrument that made the first sound of the Sikh tradition, in a Muslim musician's hands.
Sarangi
ਸਾਰੰਗੀسارنگی
The bowed instrument most often described as closest to the human voice — it does not play so much as sigh. One instrument, three worlds.
Taus
ਤਾਊਸطاؤس
A great bowed instrument whose body is carved and painted as a peacock — tāūs is Persian for peacock — and whose origin story is a model of how tradition and history interact.
Dilruba
ਦਿਲਰੁਬਾدلربا
A lighter, rectangular relative of the taus — dilrubā is Persian for “heart-stealer” — with a genuinely contested origin story and a beautiful arc of loss and recovery.
Algoza
ਅਲਗੋਜ਼ਾالغوزہ
Two fipple flutes played at once — one carries the melody, the other a drone — on a single, never-broken breath.
Dhol
ਢੋਲڈھول
The shoulder-slung barrel drum whose two heads — struck with a heavy bent stick and a whip-thin cane — are the pulse the whole world now recognises as Punjabi.
Chimta
ਚਿਮਟਾچِمٹا
A pair of long iron fire-tongs fitted with brass jingles — a kitchen implement that shook itself into being an instrument.
Still to come