The gottuvadyam is a 20 or 21-string fretless lute-style veena in Carnatic music from around the late 19th and early 20th centuries, named by Sakha Rama Rao[1] from Tiruvidaimarudur, who was responsible for bringing it back to the concert scene.

Today it is played mainly in South India, though its origins can be traced back to Bharata's Natya Shastra (200 BCE-200 CE), where it is mentioned as a seven string fretless instrument.

As a chitravina it was popularised in South India by Sakha Rama Rao before his disciple Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar (1903 - 1959), who was a palace musician of the erstwhile States of Travancore and Mysore took it to great heights.

[citation needed] The chitravina is generally tuned to G sharp (5 and 1/2) and played with a slide like a Hawaiian steel guitar and the north Indian vichitra veena.

[citation needed] The fretless nature of the instrument, Narayana Iyengar's stringing methods have made its tone 'reminiscent of the human voice.