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 nói: “Trên cõi đất này không có người đàn ông nào sánh bằng ta. Về dung mạo, tuổi xuân, phúc vận và những hưởng thụ cát tường thượng hạng, không ai có thể đo bằng ta.”
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.