| FIG. 4. |
In attempting to trace the use of the bow to its source we are obliged to content ourselves with the generalized statement that it is undoubtedly of oriental origin. Thus, that it had an origin is proved beyond "all possible, probable shadow of doubt."
But whether the first form of bowed instrument became extinct prehistorically, or whether it still survives, as some suppose, in the Ravanastron of India, is not easily determined.
My own personal belief in the extreme antiquity of the bow is such as almost to justify the quaint statement of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Adam played the viol in Paradise.
Of existing bowed instruments the Ravanastron (Fig. 4) most certainly seems to be the oldest, as its structure is more primitive than any other.
Concerning this instrument legend runs to the effect that it was invented by Ravana, who was king of Ceylon some 5,000 years prior to the Christian era. How far this is accurate is impossible to say, for the oldest names for the bow known to Sanskrit scholars only take us back 1,500 to 2,000 years. Of these names it is interesting to note that the Kôna was evidently no more than a "friction rod" as, judging from the early descriptions, it would appear to have been without hair. Whether the Gârikâ or Parivàdas approached more nearly to the modern idea of a bow I am unfortunately not in a position to state with any degree of certainty.
The Ravanastron was, like the violin in its earliest stages, played only by the inferior classes of India; a fact that, as Engel clearly points out, makes it seem highly improbable that it was a Mohammedan importation, despite some writers' assertions to that effect. Undoubtedly it was introduced with Buddhism, from India into China, where it became modified in unimportant details into the Ur-heen.
A curious point in connection with some oriental fiddles, such as the Ur-heen, Uh-Ch'in (Fig. 5), Koka, etc., is that the hair of the bow passes between the strings.