Raimon Panikkar Alemany, also known as Raimundo Panikkar and Raymond Panikkar (November 2, 1918 – August 26, 2010), was a Spanish

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

priest and a proponent of

Interfaith dialogue Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is ...

. As a scholar, he specialized in

comparative religion Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yie ...

Early life and education

Raimon Panikkar was born to a Spanish

mother and a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

n father in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. His mother was well-educated and from the

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

bourgeoisie. His father, Ramunni Panikkar, belonged to a Malabar

Nair The Nair , also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom hist ...

family from

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union terr ...

. Panikkar's father was a freedom fighter during British colonial rule in India, who later escaped from Britain and married into a Catalan family. Panikkar's father studied in England and was the representative of a German chemical company in Barcelona. Educated at a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

school, Panikkar studied chemistry and philosophy at the universities of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

and

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, and Catholic theology in Madrid and Rome. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Madrid in 1946 and a doctorate in chemistry in 1958. He earned a third doctorate in theology at the

Pontifical Lateran University The Pontifical Lateran University ( it, Pontificia Università Lateranense; la, Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis), also known as Lateranum, is a pontifical university based in Rome. The university also hosts the central session of the Pont ...

in Rome in 1961, in which he compared St. Thomas Aquinas's philosophy with the 8th-century Hindu philosopher Ādi Śańkara's interpretation of the

Brahma Sutras The ''Brahma Sūtras'' ( sa, ब्रह्मसूत्राणि) is a Sanskrit text, attributed to the sage bādarāyaṇa or sage Vyāsa, estimated to have been completed in its surviving form in approx. 400–450 CE,, Quote: "...we c ...

Career

In 1946 he was ordained a

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned (" ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers onl ...

and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Madrid. He made his first trip to India in 1954 where he studied

Indian philosophy Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Veda ...

and religion at the University of Mysore and Banaras Hindu University, where he met several Western monks seeking Eastern forms for the expression of their Christian beliefs. "I left Europe or Indiaas a Christian, I discovered I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist without ever having ceased to be Christian", he later wrote. While in Jerusalem during 1962, he was summoned to Rome by the Opus Dei founder and director,

Josemaría Escrivá Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (9 January 1902 – 26 June 1975) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest. He founded Opus Dei, an organization of laypeople and priests dedicated to the teaching that everyone is called to holiness ...

, who expelled him after a brief trial where he was charged with disobedience to the organization. In 1966 he became a visiting professor at

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...

and a professor of religious studies at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

in 1972, and for many years he taught in the spring and spent the rest of the year doing research in India. Where the typical approach to cross-cultural religious studies, especially in a secular university, was to hold two or more traditions at arm's length and draw lines of comparison between them, Panikkar's approach was to view issues in the real world through the eyes of two or more traditions. In 1987 he moved to

Tavertet Tavertet is a small town located above some cliffs, 900m above sea level, in the area known as Collsacabra, north of the Guilleries, in the ''comarca'' of Osona in Catalonia. Below the cliffs is Pantà de Sau, a reservoir that dammed the water ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the no ...

, in the hills north of Barcelona, where he founded the Raimon Panikkar Vivarium Foundation, a center for intercultural studies. In 2005 he created Arbor, for the realization of his principle of interreligious collaboration for the relief of poverty in thousands of villages of India. Panikkar authored more than 40 books and 900 articles. His complete works are being published in Italian. His 1989 Gifford Lectures were published in English by Orbis in 2009 under the title ''The Rhythm of Being''. In a statement from his residence in Tavertet dated January 26, 2010, he wrote: "Dear Friends ... I would like to communicate with you that I believe the moment has come (put off time and again), to withdraw from all public activity, both the direct and the intellectual participation, to which I have dedicated all my life as a way of sharing my reflections. I will continue to be close to you in a deeper way, through silence and prayer, and in the same way I would ask you to be close to me in this last period of my existence. You have often heard me say that a person is a knot in a network of relationships; in taking my leave from you I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for having enriched me with the relationship I have had with each of you. I am also grateful to all of those who, either in person or through association, continue working to spread my message and the sharing of my ideals, even without me. Thankful for the gift of life which is only such if lived in communion with others: it is with this spirit that I have lived out my ministry."

Works

* ''The Unknown Christ of Hinduism'' (1964) * ''The "crisis" of Madhyamika and Indian philosophy today''.

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

Press (1966) * ''Cometas: Fragmentos de un diario espiritual de la postguerra''. Euramerica, S.A. (first edition; 1972) * ''Worship and secular man: An essay on the liturgical nature of man, considering secularization as a major phenomenon of our time and worship as an apparent fact of all times; A study towards an integral anthropology''. Orbis Books, 1973 * ''The Trinity and the religious experience of man: Icon-person-mystery''. Orbis Books, 1973 * ''The

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

Experience: Mantramañjari: An Anthology Of The Vedas For Modern Man''. Berkeley:

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

Press, 1977. * ''Colligite fragmenta: For an integration of reality''.

Villanova University Villanova University is a private Roman Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the Augustinians in 1842 and named after Saint Thomas of Villanova. The university is the oldest Catholic university in Pennsy ...

Press, 1978 * ''Myth, Faith and

Hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate ...

: Cross Cultural Studies''. Paulist Press, 1979. * 'Aporias in the comparative philosophy of religion', in ''Man and World'', vol 13, 1980, pp. 357–83. * ''The Unknown Christ Of Hinduism: Towards An Ecumenical Christophany'' (1981 Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.) * ''Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as a Universal Archetype''. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984. * ''The Silence of God: The Answer of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

''. Orbis Books; revised edition (June 1989) * ''The Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness'' edited by Scott Eastham. Orbis Books, June 1993. * ''A Dwelling Place for Wisdom''. Westminster John Knox Press, November 1993 * ''Invisible Harmony: Essays on

Contemplation In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with prayer or meditation. Etymology The word ''contemplation'' is derived from the Latin word ...

and Responsibility'' edited by Harry James Cargas.

Augsburg Fortress 1517 Media, formerly Augsburg Fortress Press, is the official publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), also publishing for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) as ''Augsburg Fortress Canada''. Headquarte ...

Publishers, June 1995 *'' Pluralism and oppression: theology in world perspective'' (co-authored with

Paul F. Knitter Paul Francis Knitter (born February 25, 1939) is an American theologian. He is currently an emeritus professor at Union Theological Seminary, where he has served as the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture since 2007. ...

). College Theology Society. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991. *''Cultural Disarmament: The Way to Peace''. Westminster John Knox Press; September 1, 1995 *''The Intrareligious Dialogue''. Paulist Press; revised edition, July 1999. *''Christophany: The Fullness Of Man''. Orbis Books, November 30, 2004. *Foreword to ''The Cave of the Heart: The Life of

Swami Abhishiktananda Abhishiktananda ( sa, अभिषिक्तानन्द, Abhiṣiktānanda; 30 August 1910, in Saint Briac, Brittany – 7 December 1973, in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India), born Henri Le Saux, was a French monk who, having moved to ...

'' by Shirley Du Boulay. Orbis, 2005. *''Espiritualidad Hindu: Sanatana Dharma''. Kairos, 2006 *''The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery'' (trans. by Joseph Cunneen). Fortress Press, 2006. *''Initiation to the Vedas''.

Motilal Banarsidass Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House (MLBD) is an Indian academic publishing house, founded in Delhi, India in 1903. It publishes and distributes serials, monographs, and scholarly publications on Asian religions, Buddhology, Indology, Eas ...

, July 15, 2006 *''

Human Rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

as A Western Concept'' (co-authored with Arvind Sharma). D.K. Printworld, 2007, New Delhi. *''The Rhythm of Being. The Gifford Lectures''. Orbis Books, June 20, 2009.

References

External links

"Raimon Panikkar talks"

Official website

Web in Raimon Panikkar honoris

Personal library in Universitat de Girona

* ttps://them.polylog.org/1/fpr-en.htm ''Religion, Philosophy and Culture'' by Raimon Panikkar {{DEFAULTSORT:Panikkar, Raimon 1918 births 2010 deaths 20th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests 20th-century Spanish Roman Catholic theologians 21st-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests Indian people of Spanish descent 21st-century Spanish Roman Catholic theologians Banaras Hindu University alumni Roman Catholic priests from Catalonia Complutense University of Madrid alumni Harvard Divinity School faculty Malayali people Clergy from Barcelona Philosophers of religion Religious studies scholars Spanish people of Indian descent Spanish philosophers University of Bonn alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty University of Mysore alumni

Early life and education

Career

Works

References

Further reading

External links