[1] The anandalahari has a barrel-shaped body, open on one side, and fixed on the "bottom" of a single string.

[2][3] The tool body is wooden, open on both sides; the membrane is fixed in the lower and upper parts with a leather hoop and cords.

[1] A similar instrument named pulluvan kudam[3] is found in South India.

Another similar instrument known as the gopiyantra kendra is used by the Munda people of Bengal and Odisha.

[4][5] Curt Sachs believed that the anandalahari and related instruments are a separate class of purely Indian plucked membranophones[6] but ethnomusicologist, Laurence Picken and others have shown that they are clean chordophones.