The article deals with the origin and development of the image of the god Kittung in the traditional Sora beliefs, as well as its transformation in the «new» religions that arose among the Sora as a result of active proselytism. Based on ethnolinguistic as well as comparative mythological analysis, the paper concludes that the god Kittung goes back to the Austroasiatic mythological ancestor deity, who escaped during the Deluge inside a giant gourd and recreated all life anew. At the same time, the «gourd» anthropogenic myth has a large number of parallels in Southeast Asia and southern China, so it can be assumed that the myth of Kittung dates back in time to the migrations of the Munda peoples to India. In the 20th century, Kittung goes beyond traditional beliefs and becomes God in Christianity and the supreme deity in neo-Hinduism, and is also embodied in one of the letters of the sacred alphabet of the Mattar Banom cult.

The article deals with the imagery of the Nayar (Nair) warrior caste group in two famous 16^th century Venetian travelogues. These accounts were written by the merchants Cesare Federici (traveled in the Middle East and Asia in 1563–1581) and Gasparo Balbi (traveled in 1576–1588). Their descriptive particularities are compared with the ones of some Portuguese accounts of South Asia. Federici and Babli both linked their Nayar accounts to Cochin (Kochi), an ancient city, which thrived of maritime commerce. For the merchants, the Nayars seemed analogous to the European nobility, these recklessly brave noble warriors were always loyal to their king, despised death, walked barefoot, used sword and rondache in combat and had «common women». Federici told about his personal communication with one of them. Balbi’s Nayar account is distinguished by his particular attention to the hypergamic relations between the Nayar women and Brahmin men. Balbi tried to observe the complex Hindu society of the South through the lens of the European trifunctional model. Although these Venetian authors proved to be partly dependent on the Portuguese descriptive pattern of India, their accounts contained some unique details of everyday life of 16^thcentury Kerala.

The article deals with a unique object of temple worship from Maharashtra, a Marathi-speaking region of Western India, represented by a tripartite structure having a grindmill as its middle section. The motives for such a layout are found in the poetry of the medieval maid-servant Janabai (13^th – 14^th centuries), who described in her hymns her love for the god Vitthal / Vithoba from Pandharpur and their special bonds, including his help in grinding grain. The technical assemblage of the three components into the genre scene ‘God grinds together with Janabai’ was first recorded in the introductory lithograph for the chapter 21 of the Bhaktavijay, which established Janabai as an independent character. Published in the middle of the 19th century, this collective hagiography became one of the first samples in Marathi book printing and a source of deduction of ethnocultural and nationalistic meanings throughout the period of the formation of Maharashtrian identity. In addition, in the Marathi bhakti milieu a grind mill and grinding process function as a sustained metaphor drawn from the resources of the philosophy of monism-advaita. It implies final atomicity as a result of ‘crushing’ and ‘grinding’ of duality which leads to merging with the Absolute. Ubiquitously manifested the iconography of the servant and the god, inextricably linked by a millstone in the temples in honor of Janabai, visualizes this metaphor through narratives and heroes rooted in the regional culture.

The article examines the musical performative practice of qawwali that is performed in the tombs of Muslim saints of the Chishti Sufi order and is characteristic of the Indian subcontinent. Attention is paid to the traditionalform of qawwali which it preserved in Northern India today, as well as to the community of qawwals – hereditary qawwali performers and the keepers of this tradition. The features of individual groups of this community are analyzed. Suggestions are made as to which features can potentially be universal for the qawwal community as a whole, and which are likely to be specific to individual regions or groups of performers.

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), a Dalit leader born in the caste of Mahars, received an excellent Western education and advocated the abolition of caste discrimination, is an extremely significant person in the scheduled caste community of modern India. Having given the oppressed castes the opportunity to acquire a new social identity through the adoption of Buddhism, Ambedkar became in their eyes a hero-liberator. Attention to the personality and legacy of Ambedkar began to grow steadily against the background of the arrival in politics of people from the scheduled castes, who were opposed to the politics of hindutva. At present, the significance of the personality of B.R. Ambedkar for the Indian nation is recognized at the highest state level. The leaders of the country open new memorial museum complexes, monuments, refer to the works of Ambedkar in public speeches. From our point of view, we can talk about the inclusion of B.R. Ambedkar in a kind of political pantheon of «great leaders of the past». Basing on the concept of E. Burns of the euhemerization of political leaders, as well as analyzing printed and sculptural images of Ambedkar, ritual practices and folklore of the ambedkarite community, the author describes the mechanisms of sacralization of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar in the modern Republic of India.

In the 1920s, the British province of Punjab saw the birth of a protest movement named Adi Dhar(a)m (Original Religion). It embraced low-caste members of the Sikh community who were eager to establish their own religious identity. Among the Adi Dharm founders was Mangoo Ram Mugowalia (1886–1980), who united the Chamars – one of the largest untouchable castes of Punjab. In 1931, Adi Dharm was listed in the colonial Census as a separate religion boasting almost half a million followers. In the subsequent censuses, Adi Dharm was listed as a caste. By the mid-1940s, the protest movement declined, but in the 1970s it revived owing to a great extent to the support of the Punjabi diaspora. A new phase of its history stemmed from the growth of social and political activities of Dalits (‘the downtrodden’) in India and particularly in Punjab where the Scheduled Castes account for over 30 percent of the population. Contemporary phase of the Adi Dharm history is mostly related to the activities of the All-India Adi Dharam Mission whose main temple is located in the village of Kharali, district Hoshiarpur, Punjab.

The article presents the author’s field ethnographic material, collected during a visit to several aramgarhs (aramgahs) – burial places of Parsi-Zoroastrians in India (in particular, in Delhi, Jamshedpur and Bhavnagar). Rich illustrative material is presented. Observations are made about the stylistic features of the design of graves, the social functions they play, and the ambiguity and contradiction of the dаkhmenishini tradition – the display of a corpse in the «tower of silence», accompanied by many ritual actions.

Jagadguru Ramanujacharya Swami Vishveprapannacharya is the Head of Sugriv Quila, one of Sri Ramanujacharya’s main Mathas in Ayodhya. He belongs to the lineage of a renowned philosopher Vedanta Deshika and follows Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, Qualified Nonduality which substantially differs from Advaita Vedanta popularized in the West. According to the former teaching both individual self and material world are real and eternal being manifestations of Brahman identified as Vishnu. His title Jagadguru points out at his acceptance by all followers of his lineage as the supreme authority in philosophical and practical questions. Vishveprapannacharya is a disciple of Jagadguru Ramanujacharya Swami Purushottamacharya and spiritual grandson of a well known yogi Devraha Baba.