Traditional Gold Jewellery Designs To Add To Your Collection

Gold is deeply woven into Indian culture and is associated with prosperity and growth. Beyond its monetary value, it plays an important role in religious and cultural ceremonies. Families often mark milestones in a child’s life with gold, from birth and naming ceremonies to weddings and baby showers. Jewellery design is an age-old Indian craft, with every culture developing distinctive styles. Traditional designs remain timeless and showcase remarkable craftsmanship. Here are a few classic styles to admire.

Temple Jewellery

Temple jewellery features deity images or motifs inspired by temple art. It flourished under dynasties including the Cholas, Pandyas, and Krishnadevaraya rulers, who commissioned skilled goldsmiths to make ornaments for royalty and temple deities. The detailed illustrations and carvings are traditionally handcrafted.

Common motifs include Goddess Lakshmi, Lord Ganesha, Krishna, and animals such as Garuda, swans, parrots, peacocks, and Nandi. Other designs draw on yazhi figures, lotus and screw-pine flowers, and geometric patterns. Karpagam brings temple-inspired motifs into contemporary gold jewellery designs.

Kundan Jewellery

Kundan refers to a traditional jewellery-making technique using pure gold. Artisans cut, coil, and shape 24-karat gold strips into a framework that holds gold, glass, or gemstones. Each piece is finished by hand and requires considerable skill and time.

Kundan is among India’s oldest jewellery crafts and was patronized by Rajput and Mughal rulers. Meenakari adds natural colours to engraved patterns, while jadayi sets precious and semi-precious stones. In jadayi, a thin gold foil is placed between the stone and its mount. A kundan necklace can take weeks or even months to complete, depending on its detail.

Polki Jewellery

Polki is sometimes mistaken for kundan because the styles can look similar. Polki uses uncut, natural diamonds, while kundan often features glass stones set in gold. The uncut stones are more difficult to set and make polki pieces especially distinctive; they are also typically more expensive. Mughal court rulers were among the early patrons of polki, and these heirloom-worthy designs remain admired today.

Jali Jewellery

Jali means a latticed screen. Jali jewellery uses delicate openwork patterns shaped through geometry and calligraphic forms, a technique also seen in Indian architecture, including Mughal-inspired monuments, mausoleums, and traditional homes. Creating its fine metal perforations calls for careful, meticulous craftsmanship.

At Karpagam Jewellers in Coimbatore, we create handcrafted gold and silver jewellery designed to be cherished across generations.