In present-day India magic is not a theoretical construct. Practiced as witchcraft, it has its self-appointed officials and procedures. It is also manifest, most tellingly, in the easy availability of the cheap editions of what may, with some reservations, be termed as manuals of magic. The activation of religiosity characteristic of Indian  tribal communities, to which most of the currently favorite magical rituals can be traced, is a not-so unique answer to the violence inherent in the social, economic, and political life of the nation. The methods of con- trolling complex reality presented in those manuals revive traditional cultural patterns,   nd may thus restore feelings of participation and justified agency to their users.

The article concerns the hitherto unstudied regional variant of the Advaita Vedānta monasticism of the Nampūtiri tradition in Kerala. The main objective of the paper is to present the spatial distribution of the Advaita Vedānta maṭhas (skr. maṭha – “monastery”) in the state of Kerala (South India). Through the cartographic visualisation, I intend to prove that the monastic tradition in question has, in the past, created a network of intricate ritualistic, economic, social and political interrelations spreading across whole Kerala region. The spatial analysis will allow to evaluate the qualities of the maṭhas’ geographical distribution.

The article overviews and systematises the theories and hypotheses, in the current paleographical discourse, that refer to the beginning of the Arabic script and the paths and the causes of its development until the 10th century, when this script was standardised. The article briefly discusses the linguistic situation in the Arabian Peninsula beginning from the 1st millennium BC and the issue of the diffusion of the Ancient South Arabian script in the notation of the proto-Arabic dialects. Subsequently it presents hypotheses devoted to the origin of the Arabic script and the probable paths through which the Nabataean script made its way to the Arabian Peninsula. It presents the current state of knowledge in reference to the development of the Arabic writing, the causes and the nature of the changes in the graphical form of the script. All of these elements are presented in the context of the cultural and socio-political changes which accompanied these processes in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Near East.

More than two thousand years ago, ancient Gandhāra saw the encounter of the Hellenistic civilisation with Buddhism. The representations of the Buddha Śākyamuni from the beginnings of our era produced in the artistic style of Gandhāra are a result of a synthesis of above all the Greek, Roman and Indo-Buddhist culture. As evidenced by research, not only these cultures made an impact on this art because elements of many other influences also entwined themselves with Indian ones in this field. The representations of the Buddha from Gandhāra are silent witnesses of the then intensive contacts between civilisations concentrated on the Silk Road.

The purpose of the text is to present and discuss the possible reasons which induced the Qianlong Emperor to invite the 6th Panchen Lama Palden Yeshe to visit China, in light of the possible factors which influenced the acceptance by the latter of the invitation to visit the Manchu court. The article constitutes an analysis and a comparison of the concepts presented in scholarly articles devoted to Tibetan-Manchu relations in the middle of the 18th century. The context for the subject under discussion is furnished by the representation of the question of the mutual relations of politics and religion.