The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1415 page)

 
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Magic
.

The production of effects in the world by actions, often ritualized, whose source of power is not open to observation; or by words, especially by incantation: chants of formulae, which may sound nonsensical to the outsider, may summon the relevant power, or may themselves effect the consequence: they may also be
apotropaic
. Attempts to define the relation of magic to religion have formed part of the modern study of religion since its inception at the end of the 19th cent., often utilizing the Melanesian concept of
mana
, power of a supremely effective kind—not simply ‘cause’, but the reason why particular things happen. Thus E.
Evans-Pritchard
(
Witchcraft, Magic and Oracles among the Azande
, 1937) held that magic belonged to an interactive world in which it is possible to ask questions which a Westerner would not ask. Thus the Azande are interested in ‘cause-and-effect’, but also ask why events have happened to one person rather than another: magic is a means of interrogation as well as of finding answers.
More recently, this view has been developed further, seeing magic as embedded in religion, where it acts as an organization of context and meaning. In this perspective, magic offers the transformation of circumstances without guaranteeing effects: one consequence or its opposite will still be a demonstration that magic ‘works’, because it confirms the entire context in which a person lives.

 
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see
LING-PAO P’AI
.

 
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Magisterium
,

the teaching office of the RC Church, to which
infallibility
attaches.

 
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Magnificat
.

Mary's
song of praise in Luke 1. 46–55, from the Latin
Magnificat anima mea Dominum
(‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’).

 
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Mah
bh
rata
.

A great epic of India. It comprises 100,000 verses (in all, seven times the Iliad plus the Odyssey in length), divided into eighteen books, supplemented by a nineteenth, the
Hariva
a
. The epic recounts the events before, during, and after the great battle for kingship fought at
Kuruk
etra
between the
P
avas
and
Kauravas
, branches of the Kuru lineage and descendants of
Bharata
(whence the Skt.,
Mah
bh
rata
, ‘the great [tale of] Bharata's descendants’). Also included is didactic material of encyclopaedic proportions (particularly in books 12 and 13, the
nti-
and
Anu
sanaparvans
), along with elaborate genealogies and much myth and legend (especially in books 1 and 3).
The
Mah
bh
rata