The historic town of Miraj, nestled in the Sangli district of southern Maharashtra near the Karnataka border, might seem unassuming at first glance. A modest railway junction, dusty marketplaces, and quiet residential neighborhoods give no immediate indication of the town’s deeper significance. Yet for over 150 years, Miraj has held a unique place on India’s cultural map—not only as a center of classical music but as the beating heart of a handcrafted legacy that continues to produce some of the world’s finest stringed instruments.
Walk down the narrow street once known as Sitarmaker Galli—now officially Faridsaheb Sitarmaker Marg—and you enter a world where wood, metal, and human touch converge to create soundscapes that echo through concert halls across the globe. The street isn’t long, barely a few hundred meters, but its importance is immense. Here, generations of artisans meticulously shape sitars, tanpuras, sarods, and veenas, using techniques passed down orally and refined through practice, intuition, and devotion.
Ready for a challenge? Click here to take our quiz and show off your knowledge!
The story of Miraj’s transformation into a sitar-making hub begins in the 19th century with a visionary artisan: Faridsaheb Sitarmaker. Born in 1827, Faridsaheb belonged to the Shikalgars, a community of Muslim metalworkers who had originally migrated to Miraj during the Adil Shahi rule of Bijapur in the 17th century. These skilled craftsmen specialized in forging and repairing traditional arms and armor—swords, shields, and daggers. For generations, the clang of hammer on steel was their daily rhythm.
But the dawn of the 18th and 19th centuries brought profound changes. The rise of gunpowder weapons, the fall of Indian princely states, and the consolidation of British colonial rule rendered traditional Shikalgar skills obsolete. With no wars requiring swords or spears, their craft faced extinction. Like many artisan communities in India, they faced the stark choice between reinvention or disappearance. Many Shikalgars turned to general carpentry, household tools, or metal ornamentation. However, Faridsaheb, living in a city undergoing its own cultural transformation, saw a different path.
During this period, the Patwardhan dynasty ruled Miraj, with Shrimant Balasaheb Patwardhan II emerging as a particularly enlightened patron of the arts. He invited musicians from across North India to settle in Miraj, establishing the town as a magnet for Hindustani classical music. With artists came instruments—and with instruments, the inevitable need for repair, tuning, and eventually, customized construction.
Ready for a challenge? Click here to take our quiz and show off your knowledge!
Faridsaheb began by repairing stringed instruments, carefully studying their construction. His innate curiosity led him to dissect old, broken instruments to understand the science behind their sound. In one often-repeated anecdote among his descendants, it’s said that Faridsaheb once spent weeks sleeping next to a sitar, tapping it at various hours of the night to understand how humidity and temperature affected its resonance.
The real breakthrough came when he discovered that local gourds, traditionally used by sadhus to carry water, had acoustic properties ideal for stringed instruments. Sourced from local farms or even grown to specification, these gourds were carefully dried and treated to become natural resonating chambers. With the help of his brother Moinuddin, Faridsaheb started building sitars entirely by hand—experimenting with wood types, string tensions, and the delicate javari (a small piece that shapes the instrument’s tonal quality).
The instruments that emerged from his humble workshop carried a unique sound—rich, full-bodied, and deeply nuanced. Word began to spread. As demand grew, Faridsaheb trained his sons and other apprentices. Soon, entire families took up the art, transforming Sitarmaker Galli into a living museum of musical craftsmanship. Over time, Miraj became synonymous with excellence in stringed instrument-making. Musicians across India, and eventually the world, began commissioning custom instruments from the town.
By the mid-20th century, the fame of Miraj’s instruments reached legendary proportions. Pandit Ravi Shankar, who was instrumental in introducing Indian classical music to the West, commissioned sitars from Miraj. So did Ustad Vilayat Khan, whose “Vilayatkhani” sitar style still influences luthiers today. In fact, some sitars crafted in Miraj bear names like “Ravi Shankar style” or “Vilayat Khan style,” referring not to design ownership, but to the precise tonal qualities these maestros preferred. In one telling moment, a disciple of Vilayat Khan once remarked that “a Miraj sitar doesn’t just sing—it breathes.”
To this day, Miraj sitar-makers use no automated machinery. Their tools are simple—chisels, files, hand drills, and wooden clamps. The workshop process is collaborative: each artisan specializes in a specific component, whether carving the tumba (gourd), shaping the dandi (neck), or tuning the frets.
What sets Miraj apart is the intimacy of craft. Instruments are not mass-produced but made to order, with specifications tailored to each musician’s hands, style, and sonic preferences. A sitar from Miraj might take weeks or months to complete, depending on complexity and the artisan’s existing workload.
Much of the craft remains unwritten. Knowledge is passed through observation and oral tradition, where young apprentices learn by assisting elders, gradually absorbing the nuances of wood grain, varnish consistency, or fret alignment. One artisan once said, “You don’t just learn to make a sitar—you learn to listen to it before it’s born.”
Miraj Today
Despite global recognition, the artisans of Miraj face contemporary challenges. The decline of classical music audiences, the availability of cheaper factory-made instruments, and the lack of formal institutional support threaten the sustainability of this art. Yet, the community remains resilient.
Local organizations and a few NGOs have begun documenting these artisans’ work, offering workshops and exhibitions. There is also a growing awareness among modern classical musicians of the value of handcrafted instruments, sparking a small but steady revival in patronage.
Walking down Sitarmaker Marg today, you’ll still find workshops buzzing with quiet concentration. Young boys assist their fathers and uncles, handing over small tools, trimming frets, or carefully tuning a newly strung sitar. The air smells of rosewood shavings and lacquer, and somewhere in the background, a tanpura hums gently.