Panikkar. His life and his works

One hundred years after his birth, the exceptional personality and eclectic knowledge of Raimon Panikkar are still the object of interest and research by scholars from all over the world, helping to strengthen the “Panikkar legend”. From this accurate biography, which intertwines his life with his works and follows the footsteps of the original erratic path of Tavertet’s philosopher, the profile of one of the main innovators of the Western theological and philosophical tradition emerges, a man who has dialogued with the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century and can rightly be counted among them. Born in Barcelona to a catalan mother and a hindu father, Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010) was a thelogian and philosopher; university professor, christian priest and prolific writer; great erudite and tireless traveler. Moved by the vocation for open discussion and mutual enrichment, this “artist of dialogue” has been able to inhabit the irreducible multiplicity and diversity of religions and cultures and has embodied the highest synthesis between East and West. Through Panikkar’s movements between Spain, Italy, India, United States and Catalonia we retrace the fundamental stages of his existence to penetrate the spirit that animated and shaped his thought, from the cosmotheandric vision (which affirms the inseparable trinitarian structure of reality in God-man-world) up to reflections on mythology, sacred secularity and Buddhism. The myth that has been built around this figure requires however to be read and interpreted to be able to see the man behind the “teacher”. This is Maciej Bielawski’s aim in this biographical portrait of Panikkar, in an attempt to “save” the person and the value of his work. With dedication and respect, Bielawski shows the sense of the path walked by the philosopher and guides us through the fascinating “Panikkar labyrinth”.