  A brief review of a self-contained genuinely three-dimensional
monodromy-matrix based non-perturbative covariant path-integral approach to
{\it polynomial invariants} of knots and links in the framework of
(topological) quantum Chern-Simons field theory is given. An idea of
``physical'' observables represented by an auxiliary topological
quantum-mechanics model in an external gauge field is introduced substituting
rather a limited notion of the Wilson loop. Thus, the possibility of using
various generalizations of the Chern-Simons action (also higher-dimensional
ones) as well as a purely functional language becomes open. The theory is
quantized in the framework of the best suited in this case {\it
antibracket-antifield} formalism of Batalin and Vilkovisky. Using the Stokes
theorem and formal translational invariance of the path-integral measure a {\it
monodromy matrix} corresponding to an arbitrary pair of irreducible
representations of an arbitrary semi-simple Lie group is derived.
