The
Mohan Veena refers to two distinct
Indian classical instruments, one a modified
sarod created by the well-known
sarodiya Radhika Mohan Maitra, and the second being a modified
Hawaiian guitar created by
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Bhatt's instrument is a modified
Archtop guitar and consists of 20 strings - three to four melody strings, four to five drone strings are strung from the peghead, and twelve
sympathetic strings strung to the tuners mounted on the side of the neck. A gourd (or the
tumba) is screwed into the back of the neck for improved sound sustain and resonance. It is held in the lap like a
slide guitar. It is under tremendous tension; the total strings pull to be in excess of 500 pounds. Performers include
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt,
Salil Bhatt (who went on to invent the Satvik Veena, a derivative of his father's Mohan Veena), Manish Pingle (toured UK in 2015 with Michael Messer), and Canadian blues singer
Harry Manx. There are variants of the Mohan Veena in India, such as the Chaturangui (created by Debashish Bhattacharya), Hansa Veena (created by Barun Kumar Pal), and Shankar Veena (created by Kamala Shankar).