Bharata Can Be Compared Only with Bharata
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 288
Doha 288 · Movement 2 of 2
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Comparison depends upon a shared measure, but Bharata's virtues appear without boundary. No familiar image can stand beside the union of humility, courage, renunciation, brotherly love, and service revealed in him.
To compare Mount Sumeru with a mustard seed would not honor the mountain. It would expose the poverty of the scale. So too, ordinary praise shrinks before Bharata instead of enlarging him.
The lineage of poets withdraws in humility. Language reaches its sacred limit and discovers that Bharata is equal only to Bharata. This failure of comparison becomes the truest praise, leaving his character unobstructed by images too small to contain it.
Poetry honors Bharata by lowering its measuring rod, for the only likeness vast enough for Bharata is Bharata himself.
Read the passage from the Manas
निरवधि गुन निरुपम पुरुषु भरतु भरत सम जानि। कहिअ सुमेरु कि सेर सम कबिकुल मति सकुचानि।।288।।
Bharata is a man of limitless guna, truly beyond all comparison. Knowing Bharata to be equal only to Bharata himself, how could one liken Mount Sumeru to a mustard seed? The whole kula of poets draws back in humility.