Mahabharata — Virata Parva, Shloka 43
Adhyāya 14: Sudēṣṇā Sends Sairandhrī to Kīcaka’s House (सुदेष्णा–सैरन्ध्री–कीचक संवादः)
पृथिव्यां मत्समो नास्ति कश्चिदन्य: पुमानिह । रूपयौवनसौभभाग्यैभीगै क्षानुत्तमै: शुभै:,“रूप, यौवन, सौभाग्य और सर्वोत्तम शुभ भोगोंकी दृष्टिसे इस भूतलपर मेरी समता करनेवाला दूसरा कोई पुरुष नहीं है
pṛthivyāṁ matsamo nāsti kaścid anyaḥ pumān iha | rūpayauvanasaubhāgyair bhogaiś cānuttamaiḥ śubhaiḥ ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “On this earth there is no other man equal to me. In beauty, youth, good fortune, and in the finest auspicious enjoyments, none can match my measure.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights self-exalting pride—measuring oneself as unmatched in beauty, youth, fortune, and pleasures. In the Mahābhārata’s ethical frame, such arrogance is a moral vulnerability that can cloud judgment and invite downfall, standing in tension with dharma’s ideals of humility and self-restraint.
In Vaiśampāyana’s narration, a speaker (within the story being recounted) boasts that no man on earth equals him in beauty, youth, prosperity, and supreme enjoyments—setting a tone of overconfidence that typically foreshadows conflict, correction, or reversal in the epic’s narrative logic.