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Lakshmana himself paraphrases this passage with a few additions of his own in the following terms.
"In the Upāsanā-Kānda of the Veda the Upāsanā or the contemplative worship is treated of in all its details. These details were compiled by Siva in six classes of works known as Āgama, Rahasya, Samhita, Yāmala, Arnava and Tantra, each class being devoted to a distinct Devata or form of the Supreme. Bhārgava Rāma, son of Jamadagni, saw them too vast and asked his revered master, Blessed Dattātreya who combined the Trinity in Himself, to abridge the system. Accordingly, seeing that the Upāsanā of Tripurā was the highest of all forms of worship and that its effect included the effects of all other forms of worship, composed Datta-Samhitā comprising eighteen thousand verses, in which the worship of Tripurā was laid down in all its details in a succinct form. From Him Bhārgava Rāma learnt the Samhitā. But, finding that it was still too vast in extent and that its meaning was still too deep for the average devotee to understand, Rāma abridged the system still further and presented it in an intelligible form. This abridgment contained six thousand Sūtras in fifty Khandas or sections. Rāma's pupil, again, Sumedha of the Harita family who studied this Sūtra from his master, found the work almost as vast as Datta-Samhitā, and so made an abridgment of the Samhitā and Sūtrā, in the shape of another work of Sūtras, taking the form of a dialogue between Datta and Rāma. It is this abridgment that has come down to us as the Parasurāma-KalpaSūtra comprising ten Khandas. Though the work is not apparently in the form of a dialogue, still, it may be inferred from the concluding passage of the work that it is a dialogue between the master and his pupil.”
Lakshmana then proceeds to show the necessity for his own work :
“Finding this Sūtra too deep in its meaning for ordinary students to understand, Umānandanātha, a disciple of the
