The sārangī is a bowed, short-necked three-stringed instrument played in traditional music from South Asia – Punjabi folk music, Rajasthani folk music, Sindhi folk music and Boro folk music – in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It is said to most resemble the sound of the human voice through its ability to imitate vocal ornaments such as gamaks (shakes) and meends. The Nepali sarangi is similar but is a folk instrument, unornate and four-stringed.

In musical instrument classification, string instruments or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.