I am a cultural and intellectual historian of Hinduism, working at the crossroad of literature, translation, religion and philosophy. I obtained my PhD in South Asian Studies at the Université de Lausanne (Switzerland) in 2022. My thesis was published in a revised version by De Gruyter, with the title Vedānta, Bhakti, and their early modern sources: philosophical and religious dimensions of Brajvāsīdās’ Prabodhacandrodaya Nāṭaka (2024). With this work, I have challenged the common understanding of Vedānta philosophies as being transmitted only in Sanskrit and through technical treatises, by analysing an 18th c.-drama composed in Early Hindi, Brajvāsīdās’ Prabodhacandrodaya Nāṭaka. I have demonstrated that the philosophical creativity of Brajvāsīdās lies in its relying on another famous Early Hindi work, the Rāmcaritmānas by Tulsīdās (16th c.). The latter text is a locus classicus of bhakti (devotion) but Brajvāsīdās saw it also as communicating philosophical doctrines. In this way, my work offers a reconsideration of Vedānta philosophies as a phenomenon deeply entrenched with literary expression and in constant conversation with religious dimensions.
From 2022 to 2025, I have conducted a novel postdoctoral project at Gent University as FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow: “When the king does philosophy: the Vedantic writings of Jasvant Singh of Mārvāḍ (1626–1678)”. With this project I have investigated the intellectual profile of an important political figure of 17th c. North India, King Jasvant Singh of Jodhpur/Mārvāḍ. A well-known author of philosophical texts in Early Hindi that, however, remained largely neglected. With my project I have focused on the way these texts fit into the dynamics of vernacularisation that took place in the second millennium in North India. In my articles, I have shown that, rather than plainly translating or imitating Sanskrit models, Jasvant adapted Vedānta philosophy to the vernacular mould in terms of literary genre and imagery. Among others, I have also connected this investigation of philosophical literature with one of the political milieu in which Jasvant moved, interrogating the political significance of writing philosophy in vernacular, rather than Sanskrit or Persian.
From 2026 to 2029, with a new grant by FWO as Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, I conduct the project "Vedānta at the Rajput courts: Vernacular Philosophy in Early Modern North India". Far from considering Jasvant Singh an exception, I assess how several Rajput rulers–both from major and minor courts from 17th to 18/19th c.–composed works on Vedānta philosophies. These works mostly survive in manuscript format, yet they are a fundamental source towards drawing a more complex history of the tradition and its popularisation beyond strictly expert contexts. Connected to this main focus, I work also on the communication of philosophy and religion through print and on the intersection of religion, nationalism and popular culture. Beyond it, I have taught and hold an interest in human-nonhuman animal relationships as articulated through religion and literature.
