A facile, surfactant-mediated strategy involving 'oriented attachment' assisted self-assembly of rice-like and grape-like nanostructures resulted into a novel encapsulated rock-like luminescent YVO4:Eu3+ nanoarchitecture in aqueous medium. It is shown that a characteristic crystallization behavior of YVO4:Eu3+ leads to the growth of a rice-like shape in a template-free reaction system. In presence of a surfactant, these rice-like structures in the vicinity of the micellar head groups self-assemble to form nanograpes and ultimately produce rock-like nanostructures upon prolonged autoclaving. The rock-like nanocrystalline phosphors, having an average area of 2798 nm(2), are composed of an inner nucleus and a surrounding shell-like cover, as evidenced from the transmission electron microscopy images. Finally, the room temperature photoluminescence spectra demonstrate that the morphology of the nanophosphors has immense influence on their chromaticity.