This instrument was invented by the Lord of Yogis, Shiva, or whose name is Mahadeva, who gave to the world his lifelong experiences in the practice of yoga, and who is worshipped in India as a godhead. His literature is considered as holy scriptures. He was a great master of breathing and an ascetic. He lived in the mountains, where he sat and breathed the free air of the wide horizons of the East and practiced mantras, words and phrases which changed the whole being of man. There he wanted to make some instrument to be used for higher exaltation by the help of music. In the forest what he could do was to cut a piece of bamboo. He took two pumpkins, made them hollow and tied them around the bamboo. Gut strings he got from animals, and these gut strings he tied upon it. In this way he made his first vina. And he practiced on it in solitude. There is a quotation, that when the deer in the forest used to hear him play the vina, they used to say, "Make the gut strings of my own entrails and put them on your vina, but as long as I live, continue to play."