The aim of this paper is to discuss the reasons behind mapping three sites of Narasiṃha worship (Kāñcī, Ahobilam, Ghaṭikādri) in terms of the 3rd chapter of the Vaiṣṇavaoriented Kāñcīmāhātmya. Textual analysis of the Narasiṃha myth of the text reveals that it has been inspired by various local narrations related to the places located on the route sketched by the deity’s travels. The most effective means of connecting these places is the mythical narrative on Narasiṃha’s race after the demons, which frames the story and hence unifies single episodes inspired by appropriate local traditions. The purpose of such a literary technique is to produce a certain area that for some reasons was, or was intended to be, important for its inhabitants. Remarkably, maintaining the Andhra-bounded motif of Narasiṃha, who kills Hiraṇyakaśipu at Ahobilam, the furthest destination on the route, makes this particular site an indispensable and especially meaningful spot on the KM 3 literary map. Since the demarcated territory transgresses in a way the land of the Tamils, the paper also attempts to determine whether the particular version of the Narasiṃha myth in the KM 3 may reflect the religious and political reality of South India under the rule of Vijayanagara kings, i.e. after the 14th century.

The article is an attempt to interpret selected works by Fyodor Sologub ( Церковь, В моей лампаде ясный свет..., Опять сияние в лампаде..., Моя верховная Воля), characterized by the lyrical I’s gradual departure, a turning away from God towards the forces of evil, deism and demonic solipsism. These works display the complex motifs typical of modernist aestheticism; inspired by the philosophical thought of A. Schopenhauer: his pessimism, disillusionment with the world, despair, existential emptiness, complete loneliness etc. The lyrical subject finds himself in a certain spiritual wilderness. His relationship with God undergoes a drastic change. The hitherto Christian figure of the merciful Father is replaced by the strict and cruel judge, the evil demiurge. The poet gives him the name of the Old Testament God – Adonai. However, by his actions (evil, insidious and vengeful), he rather resembles the Gnostic Jaldabaoth or Satan – the opponent of Christians. The interpreted texts also reveal the authorial lyrical speaker as fascinated with “the new genius” – Lucifer, whose image becomes positively redefined. He gains the status, as well as the features and powers traditionally ascribed to the Christian God.

The obscure gloss Phix, which is attested in Hesiod’s Theogony, is thought to denote the same Theban monster that bears the name Sphinx in later sources and appears in the Oedipus saga. The present paper argues, however, that the word Phix cannot be convincingly shown to be cognate with the word Sphinx, since the origin of the latter seems to be a Greek word for a strangling monster – as linked with the verb σφίγγω – whereas the former is probably of non-Greek and possibly even non-Indo-European origin. Subsequently, the article proceeds to discuss a number of ancient Near Eastern sources, in particular those featuring infant-killing spirits, in order to demonstrate the emergence of the sphinxes in Greece from the Levant.

This is an interpretation of Ireneusz Iredyński’s short novel Manipulation in the context of acedia, a state of depressive indolence and spiritual apathy. This psychological condition received its earliest description in the writings of the Desert Fathers (most notably Evagrius Ponticus), Christian hermits who lived in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd-4th Century A.D. The article lists and analyzes some of the acedic symptoms and motifs that recur in the experience of the main character of Manipulation (i.e. temptation by demons, suicidal fantasies, imprisonment in a cell); it also examines the temporal structure of the narration. For intertextual reference the discussion reaches out to the writings of Evagrius Ponticus and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Possessed.