IT is intended to give herein a short introduction

to, and an analysis of, Laghu Yoga Vasistha. Of

course the analysis cannot be an exhaustive one, as
it will have then to run through many pages and
form a book of its own. There are, as at present
known to us, two works by the name of Yoga
Vasistha, the larger one going by the name of
Brihat Yoga Vasistha and the smaller one, Laghu
Yoga Vasistha. The term Brihat means great, while
Laghu signifies small. Vasistha is because of this
work emanating from Rishi Vasistha as will be
seen later on. Though the book is dubbed with the
appellation, Yoga Vasistha, it treats of jnana only
though practical Yoga is dealt with in two stories
in this work. Even there it says that the pure RajaYoga is meant and not Hatha-Yoga. Rather the
word Yoga seems to have been used in the title of
this work in its generic sense of including JnanaYoga and other Yogas as in the Bhagavad Gita.
Of the two above mentioned works, the smaller
one is an abridgment of the bigger and contains
about 6,000 Granthas1, whereas the latter contains
36,000. The commentary of the former has the same
number of Granthas as the original whereas that of
the latter amounts to 74,000 Granthas which with
its original is a lakh on the whole. In the abridged
text, almost all the words of the bigger one are
reproduced verbatim from the bigger one, the
work of the author being generally to clip the
bigger of its expansive descriptions and so on; so
that in the work before us, we have got the
quintessence extracted. This work seems to have
been undertaken by one Abhinanda, a great pandit
of Kashmir. The authorship or rather writership is
attributed to Rishi Valmiki, the author of the
Ramayana who is said to have related the whole of
Yoga Vasistha to Rishi Bharadwaja as having
occurred between Sri Rama and Rishi Vasistha. But
of this, later on. The larger work seems to have
been partially translated by a gentleman hailing
from Bengal. But this one, though small, it is
named, is yet big enough.
This work is, in the words of Madame Blavatsky,
meant for the few only?. In the phraseology of this
work, it is intended neither for those Ajnanis (or
the worldly-minded), who welter in the sea of
Samsara without being indifferent to the worldly
things nor for those higher spiritual personages
who have reached a state of adeptship, so as to be
above all advice. Hence it is written in the interests
of those who have become indifferent to worldly
things and crave for spirituality becoming a potent
factor in their daily lives. Fancy a work like The
Voice of Silence put into the hands of a worldly
person of decidedly materialistic view and he will
throw it away in sheer disgust. Similarly will this
work appear to a person who has not caught a
glimpse even of the higher life and principles. A
person of true Vairagya, should he wish to have

not only some hints thrown on the nature of

cosmos, Manas (mind) and Universal Spirit from
the idealistic standpoint but also some rules of
guidance in his daily practical life towards occult
knowledge with the proper illustrations will herein
find, in my opinion, a mine of knowledge to be
guided by and to cogitate upon.