Ever since its description in early Greek ethnography, India became a focal point of miraculous stories. The land of the naked gymnosophists, of the unicorn and the terrible martichora, of the Garden of Eden, and of the Apostle Thomas and Priest John continued to be known from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages not so much as a real geographical entity than as a legendary concept. The lecture will shed light on the early formation, history and various selected aspects of this concept.
