Vashishta is supposed to have been born as the result of Brahma’s will-power. He was a great ascetic, who laboured for the welfare of world. Like many other saints, Vashishta was not a recluse.
Vashishta had his hermitage on the bands of the River Saraswati. Here he used to impart Vedic knowledge to thousands of his disciples. In the hermitage, a regular performance of several holy several holy sacrifices for the good of the world was performed. The merit earned by these performances of tapasya was Vashishta’s great strength. He was a man of peace and had conquered desire and anger. He was the priest to Dashratha and also Rama.
He was a great visionary. Many of the verses in the ‘Rig-Veda’ were composed by him. He wrote a treatise called ‘Vasishta Smriti’, on dharma righteousness. He composed ‘vashishta Ramayand’. Vashishta believed that divine and individual effort were necessary to achieve anything in this world. To him, laziness was a disease that brought unhappiness in a man’s life.