How did our ancients describe the beautiful person? What do their compositions that have come down to us in the oral and written forms tell us of their idea of human beauty? What do the age old sculptures reveal to us of what our ancients considered as beautiful?Black was beautiful for some, or at some point of time – Krishna (lord Krishna) and Krishnaa (Panchali) are black. But fair skin is beautiful at many more instances. Gauri (Parvati) has ‘gaura varna’ (fair complexion). Kalidasa makes Malavika ‘fair cheeked’ (pandu ganda). Unniyarcha and other heroines of the ‘vadkkan paattu’ of Kerala have complexion like that of cut Wayanadan turmeric (“vayanadan manjal muricha pole”). Coming to features, eyes are always large and like the petals of lotus (no epicanthic fold, or slant eye  Sculptures unfortunately don’t give much clue to the ideals of beauty. These are sculpted according to traditional formulas and are often highly stylized. Yet, it can be said that they don’t reflect classical caucasian, mongolian or negroid features.