Itihāsa / The two epics / Yoga Vāsiṣṭha
Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (योगवासिष्ठ)
A dialogue of the sage Vasiṣṭha and the prince Rāma. It is also called the Mahārāmāyaṇa (महारामायण) and the Jñānavāsiṣṭha (ज्ञानवासिष्ठ). It is not a kāṇḍa of Vālmīki. Its own frame attributes it to Vālmīki, who narrates it to Bharadvāja. Scholarship dates it much later. It is a later composition that borrows the Rāma frame: Rāma has come back from a journey full of dispassion, Viśvāmitra is in the court, and before any campaign Vasiṣṭha teaches him. The teaching is that the world stands as the mind takes it, that consciousness is not one more object among the objects it watches, and that a story can do what an argument cannot. A shorter recension, the Laghu-yoga-vāsiṣṭha (लघुयोगवासिष्ठ), is the book many houses actually read. This shelf does not sit either recension line by line. No śloka is invented here to fill the gap.
The six prakaraṇas
The printed poem is arranged in six prakaraṇas (प्रकरण). The last is sometimes split, in the way a book is bound, into a former and a latter half. The six are the teaching's own order.
- Vairāgya (वैराग्य). Rāma says why the world has gone thin for him. The teaching has a person who needs it.
- Mumukṣu-vyavahāra (मुमुक्षुव्यवहार). How a person who wants release actually lives, before the metaphysics.
- Utpatti (उत्पत्ति). How an appearance arises. The world as the mind's making.
- Sthiti (स्थिति). How an appearance seems to stay, and to have a history.
- Upaśama (उपशम). How it quiets.
- Nirvāṇa (निर्वाण). The close. Stories give way to the claim that the seer was never in the seen. That crest is heard under the name Brahma Gītā.
Three stories the book is known by, so a reader can tell them apart from the kāṇḍas: Līlā, whose city is as real as the one she left; Queen Cūḍālā and King Śikhidhvaja, a marriage in which the queen is the teacher; and Śukra, Bhṛgu's son, whose mind wanders through lives while his body lies withered, and who is called back into it. Cousins of these plots show up elsewhere. They are not the same page.
नेपालीमा
योगवासिष्ठ ऋषि वसिष्ठ र राजकुमार रामको संवाद हो। यसलाई महारामायण र ज्ञानवासिष्ठ पनि भनिन्छ। यो वाल्मीकिको काण्ड होइन। यसको आफ्नै चौखटले यसलाई वाल्मीकिको भन्छ, जसले भरद्वाजलाई सुनाउनुहुन्छ। विद्वान्हरू यसलाई धेरै पछिको मान्छन्। पछिको रचना हो, रामको चौखट लिएको। राम वैराग्य लिएर फर्केका छन्। विश्वामित्र दरबारमा छन्। अभियानअघि वसिष्ठले सिकाउँछन्। शिक्षा यो हो कि संसार मनले लिएजस्तो उभिन्छ, चेतना हेरिने वस्तुहरू मध्येको एउटा वस्तु होइन, र कथाले तर्कले नसक्ने काम गर्छ। छोटो पाठ लघुयोगवासिष्ठ हो। यो खण्डले दुवै पाठमा श्लोक एकपछि अर्को गरी समावेश गर्दैन। खाली ठाउँ भर्न श्लोक बनाइँदैन।
छ प्रकरण छन्। वैराग्य, मुमुक्षुको व्यवहार, उत्पत्ति, स्थिति, उपशम, र निर्वाण। निर्वाणको शिखर ब्रह्मगीता हो। यो पुस्तक चिनिने तीन कथा छन्: लीला, जसको सहर उनले छोडेको सहरजत्तिकै वास्तविक छ; रानी चूडाला र राजा शिखिध्वज, जहाँ रानी गुरु हुन्; र भृगुपुत्र शुक्र, जसको मन जन्मजन्म घुम्छ र जसलाई शरीरमा फर्काइन्छ।
Where it sits
The non-dual verses already sat on this library are Śaṅkara's Upadeśasāhasrī and the Aṣṭāvakra Gītā. The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha is their epic cousin: the same claim, told as stories to a prince, inside a frame the seven kāṇḍas do not contain. The Brahma Gītā is the crest, where the stories have finished. The Rāma Gītā is the short close of another Rāma book, spoken by Rāma to Lakṣmaṇa. The Gītā is the other prince, on the other epic's battlefield.
🏛️ Follow Prince Rāma's full journey in the Rāmāyaṇa chronicle. The seven kāṇḍas, as a map, stay on the Rāmāyaṇa page. This dialogue is not one of them.