Although the violin is not native to the Indian subcontinent; it has become so popular that it must be mentioned. There appears to be no difference in construction between the Indian violin and its Western counterpart, however the technique is quite different. The most refined technique is to be found in South Indian music. Instead of holding the instrument under the chin, the musician props it between the shoulder and the foot. This gives a stability which cannot be matched by either north Indian nor occidental techniques. North Indian technique, though not nearly as refined, is still impressive.
The use of the violin in Indian classical music is not ancient. Although the presence of the violin could be felt from the early days of the British Raj, it appears to have only become popular in the early part of the 20th century. (Rosenthal, 1928).
Selected Videos
Other Sites of Interest
How Does Music mean? Embodied Memories and the Politics of Affect in the Indian Sarangi
Bowed strings and sympathy, from violins to indian sarangis
Let's Know Music and Musical Instruments of India
Master Musicians of India: Hereditary Sarangi Players Speak
The North Indian Classical Sarangi: Its Technique and Role
Kamanche, the Bowed String Instrument of the Orient
The Acoustic Dynamics of Bridges of Bowed Instruments (An Outline of Comparative Instrument-Making)
The Natural History of the Musical Bow
Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya (Review)
Catalogue of Indian Musical Instruments
Fractal dimension analysis of audio signals for Indian musical instrument recognition
Natural synthesis of North Indian musical instruments
Recognition of Indian Musical Instruments with Multi-Classifier Fusion
The Tagore collection of Indian musical instruments
Improvement of Audio Feature Extraction Techniques in Traditional Indian Musical Instrument
East Indians musical instruments