Pannikar, Raimundo

(b. 1918)

   Theologian and Ecumenist.

   Pannikar was born in Barcelona, Spain, of a Hindu father and a Roman Catholic mother. As a child he studied both the Hindu and the Christian scriptures. He was educated in Spain, Germany and Italy and he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1946. He has spent most of his career in India, teaching at the Universities of Mysore and Benares. In his writings, he emphasises the role that Hinduism can play in enriching the Christian tradition, and he compares it with the way the categories of Greek philosophy were incorporated into mediaeval theology. His best-known book is The Unknown Christ of Hinduism.

   D. Ford, The Modern Theologians, revised edition (1997).