Detail from a rudra veena: the string holder shaped like a bird is traditional for the instrument, and bird iconography is found on ancestral instruments as well, including the kinnari veena.
Unnamed photographer, placed in CC0 on the image's web page at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/500761">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>