Upma Alankar
Quick answer: Upma alankar is the simile of Hindi poetics: learn its four parts, upmeya, upman, saman dharma and vachak, with clear examples and practical craft tips.
Upma alankar is the simile of Hindi and Sanskrit poetics: you set one thing beside another so a shared quality shines in both. When Tulsidas writes that a frightened mind trembles like a peepal leaf, he is not saying the mind is a leaf; he is asking you to feel the shiver they hold in common. That likeness, carried by a small comparing word such as sam, sarisa or jyon, is the engine of the figure and one of the oldest tools in the poet's kit.
Alankar means ornament, the decoration of speech, and upma sits at the head of the arthalankar, the figures of meaning. Learn it well and the showier figures make sense, because most of them are variations on this single act of comparison. Get its four working parts clear in your ear, and you will spot similes, and their flaws, everywhere.
The poem
पीपर पात सरिस मन डोला
(pipar paat saris man dola: the mind trembled like a peepal leaf)
Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas (c. 1574), public domain
The four limbs of a simile
Every complete upma has four working parts, and naming them makes the figure easy to build and easier to fault-check.
In the Tulsidas line below, the mind is the upmeya, the peepal leaf the upman, trembling the saman dharma, and sarisa the vachak.
Full and elided similes
When all four limbs appear, the figure is a purnopma, a full simile. Leave one or more unspoken and you have a luptopma, an elided simile, which practised poets often prefer because it trusts the reader. Saying a face is lovely like the moon states the quality outright; saying only face, moon lets the likeness do quieter work. Bhakti poets and ghazal writers lean on this economy constantly.
Upma and its close cousins
Confusion usually comes from the neighbouring figures. Rupaka, the metaphor, drops the comparing word and asserts identity: the face is the moon. Utpreksha imagines one thing as if it were another, using words like mano or jyon. Ananvaya compares a thing only to itself when nothing else will do. If a real comparing word links two genuinely different things through a shared trait, you are looking at upma.
Making the likeness earn its keep
A tired upma is worse than none. Moon faces and lotus feet were fresh once; now they pass unread. Choose an upman your reader can actually picture, and pick a saman dharma precise enough to teach something new about the upmeya. Test each simile by asking what the standard adds that plain statement could not. Writory's monthly Hindi poetry contest, open for entries from the 1st to the 25th with scored results on the 30th, is a fair place to see whether your comparisons land.
What poets can take from this
- Name the four limbs of any simile you write; if you cannot find the saman dharma, the comparison is probably decorative.
- Prefer a fresh upman over a borrowed one: skip the moon and the lotus unless you can renew them.
- Try the luptopma: drop the comparing word or the quality and let the reader supply it.
- Match register, since a homely subject often lands harder with a homely standard than a grand one.
- Read your simile aloud in a doha or sher rhythm to check it does not overstay its line.
Try it yourself
Write four lines in which a single strong upma carries the whole poem: name your upmeya and upman in the first line, then spend the rest earning the saman dharma without repeating the comparing word.
Questions
What is the difference between upma and rupaka?
Upma keeps a comparing word and treats the two things as separate but alike, as in a mind like a leaf. Rupaka removes that word and asserts they are one, as in the mind-leaf. Both rest on a shared quality, but rupaka claims identity while upma claims resemblance.
Do I need all four parts for it to count as upma?
No. A full simile, purnopma, names all four, but a luptopma leaves one or more unspoken and is still upma. Skilled poets often drop the quality or the comparing word so the reader completes the link.
Can upma work in a ghazal as well as a doha?
Yes. The doha tradition of Kabir and Tulsidas is full of similes, and the ghazal uses them freely within the sher. The form changes the rhythm and compression, not the underlying figure.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated September 2026.
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