The Essence of Yogavaasishtha: The Great Book of Vedanta

Yogvasistha or Yogavasistha Maharamayana is reputed to consist of 32,000 slokas. According to the late Sri Bhagavan Das, Pandit Vrndavana Sarasvata of Banaras who passed away in the year 1905 had read through this great work 165 times and the work consists of 64,000 lines i.e. 32,000 slokas. However, the printed editions consist of nearly 28,000 slokas. The complete edition is perhaps available in private collections. It is not easy to condense such a great book of Vedanta, often referred to in appreviative terms, by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and other sages and scholars. There is an abridgement known as Laghu Yogavasistha consisting of 6000 slokas. Sri Vasistha Sangraha which forms the text of this publication is a condensation of the original in 1698 slokas. Sri swami Janananda Bharathi who made this compilation, maintaining the continuity and retaining the flow of the teaching, should have read the Yogavasistha several times and mastered it, as a perusal of the work will show. THE ESSENCE OF YOGAVASISTHA the fifth book in the Samata Series of Spiritual Classics, meets the felt need of many seekers of knowledge in India and abroad. The language of the text as of other scriptural texts in Sanskrit is as simple as the thought is subtle and inspiring.