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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION.
It is intended to give herein a short introduction to, and an analysis of, Laghu-Yoga-Vasishta.
Of course the analysis can not 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- Vasishta, the larger one going by the name of Brihat-Yoga- Vasishta and the
smaller one, Laghu-Yoga-Vasishta. The term Brihat means great, while Laghu signifies small.
Vasish- ta is because of this work emanating from Rishi Vasishta as will be seen later on.
Though the book is dubbed with the appellation, Yoga- Vasishta, it treats ofjnana only though
practical Yoga is dealt with in two stories in this work.
Even there it says that the pure Raja- Yoga is meant and not Hata-Yoga. Rather the word
Yoga seems to have been used in the title of this work in its generic sense of including
Jnana-Yoga and other Yogas as in the Bagawatgita, Of the two above mentioned works, the
smaller one is an abridgment of the bigger and contains about 6,000 Grandhas, whereas the
latter contains 36,000. The commentary of the former has the same number of Grandhas as
the original whereas that of the latter amounts to 74,000 Grandhas 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 ; 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 Abhi- nandana, a great pandit of Cashmere.
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- Vasishta to Rishi Bdradwaja as having
occurred between Sri Rama and Rishi Vasishta. 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.