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

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

priest and a proponent of

interfaith dialogue Interfaith dialogue, also known as interreligious dialogue, refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religion, religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spirituality, spiritual or humanism, hum ...

. 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 human migration, migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study ...

Early life and education

Raimon Panikkar was born to a Spanish

mother and a

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, 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 by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n father in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of 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 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 hi ...

family from

South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

. 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 The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

school, Panikkar studied chemistry and philosophy at the universities of

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

and

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, 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 (; ), also known as Lateranum, is a pontifical university based in Rome. The university also hosts the central session of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. The university ...

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'' (), also known as the Vedanta Sūtra (Sanskrit: वेदान्त सूत्र), Shariraka Sūtra, and Bhikshu-sūtra, are a Sanskrit text which criticizes the metaphysical dualism of the influential Samkhya philos ...

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 common English usage ''priest'' refe ...

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 consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana meaning, "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśan ...

and religion at the

University of Mysore The University of Mysore is a public state university in Mysore, Karnataka, India. The university was founded during the reign of Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV and the premiership of Sir M. Visvesvaraya. The university is recognised by t ...

and

Banaras Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU), formerly Benares Hindu University, is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916. The university incorporated the Central Hindu College, ...

, 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 is an institution of the Catholic Church that was founded in Spain in 1928 by Josemaría Escrivá. Its stated mission is to help its lay and clerical members seek holiness in their everyday occupations and societies. Opus Dei is officially r ...

founder and director, Josemaría Escrivá, 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 religious studies, academic study of religion or for leadership role ...

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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

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 , north of the Guilleries, in the ''Comarques of Catalonia, comarca'' of Osona in Catalonia. Below the cliffs is Pantà de Sau, a reservoir that dam ...

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

, 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 educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

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 ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed ...

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

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

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

Villanova University Villanova University is a Private university, private Catholic Church, Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded by the Order of Saint Augustine in 1842 and named after Thomas of Villanova, Saint Thom ...

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. As necessary, hermeneutics may include the art of understanding and communication. ...

: Cross Cultural Studies''.

Paulist Press The Paulist Fathers, officially named the Missionary Society of Saint Paul the Apostle (), abbreviated CSP, is a Catholic society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men founded in New York City in 1858 by Isaac Hecker in collaboration wi ...

, 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 legends, he was ...

''. 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 Divinity, divine which Transcendence (religion), transcends the intellect, often in accordance with religious practices such as meditation or contemplative pr ...

and Responsibility'' edited by Harry James Cargas. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, June 1995 *'' Pluralism and oppression: theology in world perspective'' (co-authored with Paul F. Knitter). 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'' 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, East ...

, July 15, 2006 *''

Human Rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

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 21st-century Spanish philosophers 20th-century Spanish philosophers University of Bonn alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty University of Mysore alumni Buddhist and Christian interfaith dialogue Christian and Hindu interfaith dialogue Academic staff of the Complutense University of Madrid

Early life and education

Career

Works

References

Further reading

External links