vásiṣṭha mfn. (superl. fr. 1. vásu; cf. vásīyas and under √ 3. vas) most excellent, best, richest, [RV.]; [AV.]; [Br.]; [ChUp.]; [MBh.]
vásiṣṭha m. (wrongly written vaśiṣṭha), ‘the most wealthy’, N. of a celebrated Vedic Ṛṣi or sage (owner of the ‘cow of plenty’, called Nandinī, offspring of Surabhi, which by granting all desires made him, as his name implies, master of every vasu or desirable object; he was the typical representative of Brāhmanical rank, and the legends of his conflict with Viśvā-mitra, who raised himself from the kingly or Kṣatriya to the Brāhmanical class, were probably founded on the actual struggles which took place between the Brāhmans and Kṣatriyas; a great many hymns of the [RV.] are ascribed to these two great rivals; those of the seventh Maṇḍala, besides some others, being attributed to Vasiṣṭha, while those of the third Maṇḍala are assigned to Viśvā-mitra; in one of Vasiṣṭha's hymns he is represented as king Su-dās's family priest, an office to which Viśvā-mitra also aspired; in another hymn Vasiṣṭha claims to have been inspired by Varuṇa, and in another [[RV. vii, 33, 11]] he is called the son of the Apsaras Urvaśī by Mitra and Varuṇa, whence his patronymic Maitrāvaruṇi ; in Manu, [i, 35], he is enumerated among the ten Prajā-patis or Patriarchs produced by Manu Svāyambhuva for the peopling of the universe; in the [MBh.] he is mentioned as the family priest of the solar race or family of Ikṣvāku and Rāma-candra, and in the Purāṇas as one of the arrangers of the Vedas in the Dvāpara age; he is, moreover, called the father of Aurva [[Hariv.]], of the Sukālins [[Mn.]], of seven sons [[Hariv.]; [Pur.]], and the husband of Akṣa-mālā or Arundhatī [[MBh.]] and of Ūrjā [[Pur.]]; other legends make him one of the 7 patriarchal sages regarded as forming the Great Bear in which he represents the star ζ See ṛṣi), [RV.] &c. &c. (cf. [IW. 361]; [402 n. 1] &c.)
N. of the author of a law-book and other works (prob. intended to be ascribed to the Vedic Ṛṣi above)
pl. the family of Vasiṣṭha, [RV.]; [ŚBr.]; [ŚrS.] (vasiṣṭhasyāṅkuśaḥ &c. N. of Sāmans, [ĀrṣBr.])
N. of an Anuvāka, [Pat.] on [Pāṇ. iv, 3, 131], Vārtt. 2
vásiṣṭha n. flesh, [Gal.]
, vasīyas. See p. 930.