However because of the unflinchingly Advaitic viewpoint, it is not popular among Dvaitins. But in a curious turn of events, it was appreciated & commissioned to be translated into Persian (then a language which opened the doors not only to Persia but to the West.)
Supriya Gandhi, a Harvard & Yale scholar, writes in her meticulously researched "The Emperor who never was", (a biography of Dara Shukoh, the eldest brother of Aurangazeb), that the first to do so was Jehangir, then a prince, who asked his Persian scholar Nizam Panipati to collaborate with Sanskrit pandits to translate an abridged version in 1597. Five years later, his father, Emperor Akbar, commissioned his own version by one Farmuli. Gorgeously illustrated with 41 miniatures, this manuscript still survives today.
Dara Shukoh, the eldest brother of Aurangazeb, had a dream during a night in 1655/6. Dara saw not the Prophet but Vasishta teaching Rama. Dara had recently read a few pages of Shaikh Sufi about Yoga Vasishta. Dara wrote that he immediately prostrated before Vasishta & he told Rama that this is a sincere disciple, please embrace him. Rama embraced Dara. Vasishta gave sweets to Rama to feed Dara, which he ate. Dara took this dream as a sign that he should produçe a new translation of Yoga Vasishta, better than the earlier ones. The rest is history.
The sad fact about this is that a text which has gained world wide renown & acceptance through efforts of Mogul royals, has been sidelined by the Hindu Dvaitins, because it does not agree with their ideology.
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