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The sarod’s story is not a simple succession of virtuosos: it is a history of musicians and instrument makers reshaping what the instrument could say. Sarod player Arnab Chakrabarty dates its emergence to around 1820 and traces a meeting of Afghan rabab and Indian sursringar traditions. In his account, later artists—from Allauddin Khan and Hafiz Ali Khan to Radhika Mohan Maitra—helped move the sarod toward a more sustained, vocal style, while changes to its construction expanded its range of expression.
How the sarod emerged
In a 2016 feature for Scroll.in, sarod player Arnab Chakrabarty places the first sarods around 1820. He describes the instrument as a chance synthesis of the Afghan rabab and the Indian sursringar. That is his historical account, not a date or genealogy presented here as universal scholarly consensus. Read Chakrabarty’s feature.
Chakrabarty’s comparison highlights a basic physical distinction: the rabab has a wooden fingerboard and gut strings, while the sarod has a polished steel fingerboard and metal strings. He connects the sarod’s fingernail slides to the sursringar tradition. The smooth steel surface, paired with the player’s nails, makes gliding between pitches central to the instrument’s expressive character.
From dense strokes to a singing voice
Chakrabarty frames the sarod’s musical development as a shift in emphasis. Earlier playing, in his description, could be dense with strokes; later musicians sought a more sustained, vocalized voice. By “sustained,” he means phrasing closer to singing: fewer attacks, more contoured slides, and melodic lines that seem to carry across pitches rather than restart at each note.
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Allauddin Khan
Chakrabarty associates Allauddin Khan’s increasing focus on melody with his training on the sursringar under Wazir Khan. He also links Khan’s artistic choices to changes in the instrument itself. The account is significant because it treats technique and design as intertwined: a player’s musical aims can encourage construction changes that, in turn, make new phrasing more practical.
Hafiz Ali Khan
Hafiz Ali Khan is presented as a master of long meends—slides that connect pitches—and a vocalized approach to alap and jod, the opening sections of a raga performance. Chakrabarty also notes design work undertaken with maker Govardhan Sharma. In this telling, the instrument’s evolving build helped serve a more lyrical and continuous musical line.
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- Instrument- Sarod
- Color- Brown
- Category- String Instrument
- Dimensions: Length 44 Inch, Width 11 Inch, Height 8 Inch
- No. of main string- 8
Radhika Mohan Maitra
Radhika Mohan Maitra appears in Chakrabarty’s account as an advocate of ornaments associated with khayal, a major Hindustani vocal tradition. He also describes Maitra collaborating with makers from the Sharma family. As with Allauddin Khan and Hafiz Ali Khan, the point is not that construction alone created a style; rather, player and maker choices developed alongside musical ambitions.
What changed in the instrument
For the period from 1940 to 1970, Chakrabarty says Allauddin Khan made the sarod louder and more resonant, and potentially extended its tonal range. He describes later adjustments to action height, neck shape, and body proportions as helping players reach higher registers and execute long slides. The feature offers examples rather than standardized measurements or a controlled comparison, so these are best understood as reported design developments, not specifications for every sarod.
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- Wooden Tabli (Sarod Head) instead of the traditional leather for a faster playing style, firmer bass and lesser sympathetic overtones to make the electric options truly viable.
- Can be played both as electric and acoustic
- In built pickups, standard guitar amp output jack.
- Full cedar wood construction with camel bone fittings.
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Chakrabarty contrasts an heirloom sarod he described in 2016 as about 130 years old with a modern instrument built for him in 2013 by Kolkata maker Nabakumar Kanji. He says the newer instrument had lower action, a different neck and body profile, and planetary gear tuning in place of traditional friction pegs. Those ages and construction details are his descriptions of individual instruments; the heirloom’s stated age, in particular, referred to 2016 and should not be treated as its age today.
The comparison is useful as a way to understand the design questions that matter, rather than as a universal old-versus-new verdict:
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- made of Tun
- Matt finish
- 33 strings in all
- Fingerboard and strings: Chakrabarty contrasts the rabab’s wooden fingerboard and gut strings with the sarod’s polished steel fingerboard and metal strings.
- Tuning: Traditional friction pegs and the planetary gears on his modern example represent different mechanisms; the article does not establish that one system is standard across current instruments.
- Action and neck access: Lower action and changes in neck shape can affect how a player reaches and moves around the fingerboard, including in upper registers.
- Sustain and slides: The ability to shape long meends is tied both to technique and to an instrument’s setup.
- Musical intent: A design serves choices about stroke density, vocalized phrasing, and repertoire; no single construction automatically produces a particular style.
A lineage of artists, not a definitive ranking
Chakrabarty’s historical and stylistic discussion names Sakhawat Hussain Khan, Chunnu Khan of Rampur, Allauddin Khan, Hafiz Ali Khan, Radhika Mohan Maitra, Ali Akbar Khan, Buddhadev Dasgupta, Kalyan Mukherjea, and Amjad Ali Khan. The feature also points to historical recordings, assigning 1906 to Chunnu Khan playing raag Bageshri-Bahar, 1934 to Allauddin Khan playing raag Lalit, and 1937 to recordings by Sakhawat Hussain Khan playing raag Pilu and by Radhika Mohan Maitra. These dates are the feature’s identifications, not a broader statistical survey.
The article includes contemporary musicians and offers opinions about their technique, repertoire, and audiences. Those are Chakrabarty’s assessments as a sarod player writing in 2016, not an objective ranking or a current survey of the field. The names above are a route into the history he tells, not an exhaustive list of sarod masters.
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- Fretless Metal Fingerboard for Smooth & Expressive Slides
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The Bangash lineage today
Official artist material shows continuity in the Bangash family lineage. Amjad Ali Khan’s official biography discusses his sons Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash and the younger generation; Ayaan Ali Bangash’s biography describes his early sarod training and subsequent career. The family’s official recordings page lists releases involving these artists. Together, these sources establish ongoing activity in one prominent lineage, but they do not represent a complete roster of today’s sarod players.
Amjad Ali Khan’s official biography includes the line, “There is no essential difference between classical and popular music.” It gives no date or fuller context for the statement, so it is best read as a view attributed to Khan on that page rather than as a comment tied to a particular event. Amjad Ali Khan’s official biography, Ayaan Ali Bangash’s official biography, and the official recordings catalog provide artist-controlled biographical and release information.
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