  We give a purely topological definition of the perturbative quantum
invariants of links and 3-manifolds associated with Chern-Simons field theory.
Our definition is as close as possible to one given by Kontsevich. We will also
establish some basic properties of these invariants, in particular that they
are universally finite type with respect to algebraically split surgery and
with respect to Torelli surgery. Torelli surgery is a mutual generalization of
blink surgery of Garoufalidis and Levine and clasper surgery of Habiro.
