Alankara: The Art of Ornament, The Soul of Beauty

The concept of alankara has mesmerized me ever since I first encountered it many years ago. I stumbled upon it while my philosophical quest into the nature of beauty — and it struck me as something profound, almost subversive. Alankara (Sanskrit: अलंकार, romanized: Alaṃkāra) is a concept in Indian classical music and literally means "ornament, decoration". An alankara is any pattern of musical decoration a musician or vocalist creates within or across tones, based on ancient musical theories or driven by personal creative choices. 

Orignated in music, Alankara names an enduring aesthetic principle that runs like a golden thread through the fabric of Indian artistic expression, whether in the visual, the performing, or the literary arts.

The verb alam-kara — “to decorate, to embellish” — quite literally means “to make enough.” For without ornament, a form is not complete. A plain, unadorned appearance is not just lacking, it is seen as insufficient, even disgraceful. Only in the context of ascetic renunciation is such bareness considered noble. In every other context, the unadorned is not neutral, it is a kind of absence, a silence where celebration should be.

While in the modern West beauty tends to follow a linear, reductive ideal, captured in mantras like “less is more” (think of the three-colour rule in design, the cult of minimalism in fashion, or the natural look in makeup), in the Eastern tradition — and in Indian aesthetics in particular — beauty becomes synonymous with decoration. I came to understand that adorning the body is not merely an act of embellishment, but a gesture of co-creation with the divine. At the heart of alankara lies the idea that ornamentation is sacred — an offering, a form of reverence, a celebration of being.

Lately, I’ve been returning to this concept with renewed curiosity, wondering not just what alankara meant to musicians or poets of ancient India, but how this philosophy of ornament — as a form of knowing, a mode of being, a rhythm of existence — might be recognized, reawakened, and reimagined in the many spheres of life we touch every day, often unconsciously, as we move through form, sound, gesture, and thought.

Here is what I have found, or rather, what has revealed itself to me in that contemplative unfolding:

In Art, alankara is the trembling of brushstrokes that refuse to merely describe; it is the energy that spirals in Van Gogh’s night skies, the texture that breaks the boundary between subject and feeling, the emotion that seeps not from what is painted, but how it is painted and it is this “how” that becomes the real revelation. In Indian miniatures, too, the story resides not only in the central figure but in the lavish margins, the teeming vines, the infinite tendrils of detail that insist that beauty lives at the edges, that ornament is not a distraction from meaning but the very expression of it, a way of saying, “there is more than the eye can see, and it is glorious.” Islamic art is perhaps one of the most luminous realms where the spirit of ornamentation is not only present but elevated into a sacred principle. It doesn't use the word alankara, but the ethos of ornament as revelation, as devotion, as transcendence made visible runs deep in Islamic aesthetics.

In language, we find alankara not in the dictionary but in the dance of metaphor, the shimmering play of alliteration, the unexpected turn of phrase that renders thought alive with breath and rhythm. A philosopher might state that “time is fleeting,” but the poet, through the ornamentation of language, will say “time slips through our fingers like twilight through the trees,” and it is in that moment of linguistic adornment that the soul listens, not just the mind. Ancient Indian poetics knew this intimately, developing entire treatises on alankara shastra — where metaphors were not rhetorical devices but vessels for rasa, the taste of meaning made sensuous, alive, embodied. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric and Poetics, develops something closer to an alankara-like approach in the domain of language.

He explores the use of metaphor, rhythm, amplification, and figures of speech as tools that don't distort truth but enhance its emotional power. For Aristotle, ornament in speech is not mere decoration, it is a vital part of persuasion and aesthetic pleasure. Roman thinkers like Cicero and Quintilian took this even further. They argued that style, ornament, and elocutio (the art of delivering arguments beautifully) were not optional extras in discourse, they were crucial to moving hearts and conveying wisdom.

In food, perhaps the most tactile of arts, alankara is present in every garnish, every careful placement of a mint leaf on a mango dessert, every final touch of saffron or rosewater that turns sustenance into poetry. It is not the calories that nourish us, but the care. A simple dal may feed the body, but it is the coriander leaf, the swirl of ghee, the clink of mustard seeds that nourish the heart — and these are not excesses, they are love incarnate, edible aesthetics.

In dance and gesture, especially in Indian classical forms like Bharatanatyam or Kathak, alankara is not merely decorative flourish — it is the language of the unspoken, the movement through which story is whispered and soul is transmitted. A single tilt of the chin, a subtle flicker of the fingers, the slow unfolding of an ankle’s turn... Each gesture is layered, ornamented, precise, and yet imbued with feeling so vast it transcends technique and becomes transcendence. Alankara here is not superficial, it is the vehicle of truth.

I can speak of this with a certain intimacy, having immersed myself in the art of Kathak dance for eight years — a deep, transformative dive into a world where, day after day, I stood in awe before the sheer abundance of movement, the endless creative ingenuity of dance masters conjuring new variations, and the sublime choreography of meaning and body, woven together through gestures, spins, and rhythm. It remains one of the most uplifting, soul-stirring experiences of my life — an eternal dialogue between form and feeling, ornament and essence.

In architecture, ornament transforms stone into spirit. The Taj Mahal would still be a tomb without its carvings, but it is the marble inlay, the arabesques, the endless calligraphy that lift it into eternity, that give form to love beyond the boundaries of time. In Indian temples or Mughal palaces or traditional Japanese joinery, ornament is what allows architecture to speak, not just shelter — to become a memory carved into matter. Western architecture reveals a profound dialogue with ornamentation that mirrors the spirit of alankara, transforming mere structure into living metaphor: the soaring Gothic cathedrals, with their intricate tracery, sculpted saints, and stained glass, weave theology and narrative into stone and light, inviting contemplation through every carved detail. The Baroque era erupts in lavish curves, gilded surfaces, and dramatic contrasts, using profuse decoration as an ecstatic expression of divine grace that floods the senses and soul; while Art Nouveau flows organically with sinuous lines and floral motifs drawn from nature itself, merging form and ornament into a celebration of life’s rhythms and interconnectedness.

In nature, alankara is effortless, wild, and wholly unapologetic. The peacock’s tail, the shimmer of dragonfly wings, the fragrance of a night-blooming flower whose purpose seems to lie beyond any rational need. Are these functions? I believe they are flourishes. Nature, too, speaks in ornament. The ripples on water, the soft hairs on petals, the spiral in a seashell — these are all signatures of a universe that refuses to be utilitarian alone. Even evolution, though described in mechanistic terms, creates surplus beauty, unneeded extravagance, gestures of extravagance for no purpose other than delight... And perhaps that, too, is divine!

In human relationships, alankara takes the form of the unnecessary word that makes a sentence kind, the smile that softens a correction, the note left by a cup of tea, the handwritten card when an email would have sufficed. These are grace. Ornament in human life is what makes duty into care, routine into ritual, transaction into tenderness, making life ultimately so adorable and enjoyable.

Even in thought, we find alankara when abstraction seeks image, when pure logic dresses itself in metaphor, not to conceal but to clarify, to make the invisible visible and the distant near. Philosophers, too, need poetry. And ornament here is epistemological: it reveals.

So what, then, is alankara, when seen not only as a musical device or poetic embellishment, but as a life principle?

To live with alankara is to see life not as raw material to be simplified, but as sacred matter to be honoured — extended, expanded, expressed in all its glorious possibility.

It is the grace of adding one more brushstroke.

The dignity of decoration, not for approval, but for the sheer joy of presence.