Dear Prof. Jha,
No Ṛṣi-status required: it is not that difficult to derive yāji as action noun from yaj ‘to venerate (ritually)’, ‘to sacrifice’ (hence having a meaning equivalent to another action noun derived from yaj: yajña '(ritualized) veneration', 'sacrifice').
See Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī 3.3.110 vibhāṣākhyānapraśnayor iñ ca and the Kāśikā.
If I understood correctly, Vasiṣṭha is replying to a question of king Daśaratha, so the form could probably be justified in the context of the story ;)
In addition, there is Uṇādisūtra pāda 4, sūtra ca. 124-134 (depending on the edition): vasivapiyaji...vāribhya iñ.
Commentaries give here examples of mostly feminine action nouns, but in the case of yāji some commentaries explain the meaning, exceptionally, as an agent noun : sacrificer. Śabdakalpadruma vol. 4 p. 31 gives yāji as a masculine noun and notes that it means sacrifice, but acc. to another authority: sacrificer. Wackernagel AiG Band 2, 2 p. 301 mentions an occurrence of yāji (also in Hauschild's Register p. 190) in the sense 'offering' ('das Opfern') in Manu 10.79, but this must be a mistake for yaji which I see in all editions available to me and which, unlike yāji, gives a correct metre.
Best regards,
Jan Houben