[1][5][6] The other two components of sangita are gita (vocal music, song) and nritya (dance, movement).
[1][7][4] In the general sense, vadya means an instrument and the characteristic music they produce, sound, or play out.
[8][9] The term vadya in the sense of "music, sounded, played, uttered" appears in Vedic literature such as the Aitareya Brahmana, and in early post-Vedic era Sanskrit texts such as the Natya Shastra, Panchatantra, Malvikagnimitra, and Kathasaritsagara.
[5] A stringed instrument is described with proportional lengths in Jaiminiya Brahmana and Aitareya Aranyaka, and these are compared to poetical meters.
[13] The term vadya also appears in the Buddhist Sanskrit text Sukhavativyuha, influential in the Chinese and Japanese traditions, which Luis Gomez translates as "instrumental music".