One of the Saptarishi and family guru (kulaguru) of the Raghu dynasty — the sage who guided Dasharatha's court and later tutored Rama himself.
सप्तर्षि · Saptarishi
Tradition places Vashishtha among the seven great seers born of Brahma's mind, and credits him with composing hymns of the Rigveda's seventh mandala. The Ramayana holds him as royal preceptor to the Ikshvaku kings of Ayodhya, tutoring the young princes Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna in dharma and statecraft.
His long rivalry with Vishwamitra, a sage-turned-king who contested his spiritual authority, is one of the most retold sage conflicts in Puranic literature, eventually resolving into mutual respect. The Yoga Vasistha, a philosophical dialogue between Vashishtha and the young Rama on the nature of the self, remains a major text of Advaita thought.