“The Monk in Raimon Panikkar: Silence, Pilgrimage, and a Christian-Hindu Dialogue”

This paper explores some of Panikkar’s writings on monasticism and silence. As a theologian brought up in two religious traditions, Christianity and Hinduism, Panikkar devoted the majority of his life to the expansion of a cosmological theological reflection and experience of the Absolute within a human and common experience. Within this search the monk became for him an archetype of a common search for the Absolute and Panikkar considered himself one. This paper argues that Panikkar’s insights become central to a contemporary Christian-Hindu dialogue and monasticism a seminal place for inter-faith dialogue based on silence and a common humanity.