East-West Swerves: Cārvāka Materialism and Akbar's Religious Debates at Fatehpur Sikri

A resurgence of Cārvāka materialist philosophy during the late sixteenth-century Mughal Empire is linked to broader intellectual movements, including the European Renaissance and Enlightenment. This study suggests that Akbar's religious debates at Fatehpur Sikri, which included Cārvāka philosophers, may have facilitated cross-cultural exchanges akin to the influence of Lucretian atomism in Europe. By analyzing Jesuit missionary writings from Akbar's court, the research traces potential 'swerves' or intellectual flows between regions, proposing that early modern debates about materialism were part of a globalized process contributing to the rise of modernity.

Wojciehowski, H. C. (2015). East-West Swerves: Cārvāka Materialism and Akbar’s Religious Debates at Fatehpur Sikri. Genre, 48(2), 131–157. https://doi.org/10.1215/00166928-2884820