The Song of a Library (Calligrammi)

by Maciej Bielawski

Another stack of books belonging to María was composed of books written entirely by her or containing some contribution from her. Three studies on Meister Eckhart belong to the first group: La muerte en el pensamiento del maestro Eckhart (1962) and Valoración del tiempo y lo temporal en el Maestro Eckhart (1965); from the second group, editions of medieval texts: Quodlibet by Thomas de Sutton (1969) and La obra De consolatione rationis de Petrus Compostellanus (1975), both written in collaboration with Michael Schmaus, theology professor from Munich, for whom María González-Haba was an assistant.

At the end of September 1983, in Cosenza and Squillace in the South of Italy, there was a conference dedicated to Cassiodorus, a Roman noble who retired from political activity in the middle of the 6th century, and dedicating himself to study and spiritual culture, founded a monastery known as Vivarium.

That is how it went. One day I was aware that Panikkar was talking about me with his friend, Jaume Argelats, a guest in our house, a priest and member of Vivarium.

From the conversation I learned that Jaume had a cousin, Antònia Boix Argelats, who was the director of the library at the University of Girona, about one hundred kilometers from Tavertet.

Raimon, Jaume and Antònia were developing an idea concerning my possible transfer to Girona, which was however not very clear at the beginning. But, as the saying goes, the meat had been placed in the oven and one day the philosopher Josep Maria Terricabras, Panikkar’s friend and a ...

On 21st February 2008 Raimon Panikkar signed

Suddenly, on 14th October 2010, a group of people from the library

During the course of one year, Josep Maria Terricabras, who had become the main promoter of the operation, together with the trustees of the library, found the necessary funds, about 30,000 euros obtained thanks to contributions from various University sources, such as the VR de Relacions Institucionals, the Consel Social and the Càtedra Ferrater

all the books were collected on sliding shelves of the Fons Raimon Panikkar, the name that I was given.

Now, my books are on view, accessible to all and equipped with magnetic bar codes. Moreover, they also have a beautiful ex libris label, which was created to resemble an ex libris label stamped on the title page of some editions of my books, for example Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton from 1739, left at the Vivarium Foundation. I don’t know what happened to the stamp itself. Perhaps some day someone will find

Now, finally, I know that I possess 12,661 documents.

Assurbanipal’s, in 7th century BC Nineveh, contained 30,000 clay tablets, while the mythical Library of Alexandria contained 40,000 scrolls according to the skeptics, but 400,000, according to the optimists.

The library of the philosopher, Josep Ferrater I Mora, located as am I within the library of the University of Girona, contains 7,255 books and the library of Jacques Derrida,

Nevertheless, I like to quote one of Seneca’s affirmations: «It’s not important how many books it has, but rather, how many of them are good», for instance, in this case numbers are not everything and I remember that Panikkar himself used to say: «The importance of a text rests not in what it says, but mainly in what each person reads there and in the overall interpretation that each era has given to it».

Recently I heard that someone has defined me as an ‘author’s library’, an expression and concept introduced in the 20th century with the librarianship of Luigi Crocetti and with which I agree. An author’s library is strictly connected to the intellectual activity of an author and is quite different from a personal library of an ordinary collector, bibliophile or founder of a library, who has not developed his own thought expressed in texts of various types. Two specific points can thus be formulated to characterize the author’s library: provenance and homogeneity.

Above my head I notice the sign Fons Raimon Panikkar.

I have known the world of books long enough to think that it’s not people who choose, because if a book doesn’t step towards a potential reader in some way, it will not be found.

who are usually no less masked and withdrawn themselves.

Within the collection of liturgical books a dozen breviaries (prayer books) are found. Catholic priests are obliged to read daily, like Panikkar did, as can be deduced from the fact that all these breviaries, both in Latin and English, are worn out. In the Breviarium romanum, editio tipica (1961), on the title page, in addition to his own signature, Panikkar added in Latin: «et a te numquam separari permittes...» (let me never be separated from you...). I must say that I considered and treated these breviaries as if they were my ambassadors or consuls, because during the various journeys Raimon sometimes made, they were the only ones that represented me, his library.

But I didn’t insist with this question, not wanting to compete with authors of spirituality who always dwell on the relationship between reading and prayer, and distinguish sacred texts from the profane ones.

one with a photograph of Bede Griffiths, with one of his prayers on the reverse side; two Christmas cards with greetings from Mary Rogers Murray; a holy card of a statue of Christ in the lotus position

on which Panikkar wrote: «Vic, 14/1/2003».

I believe that Panikkar will go down in history, among other things, as the innovator of words such as: ontonomy, cosmotheandrism, cristofany, tempeternity, etc.

The Encyclopedia of Religion by Mircea Eliade, which came out in 1987 in 17 volumes. The list could be at least ten times longer if I wanted to mention other similar works, but

was born and lived with my reader in the pre-digital era, and I belong to that era, for better or for worse.

printed and sold at affordable prices to relatively well-off individual persons.

Panikkar was a true autonomous thinker, and even therein appear his strength and originality. He mentally walked rarely frequented paths, loved words rarely pronounced and was headed toward unknown realms.

It goes without saying

Jacques-Albert Cuttat or Bede Griffiths,

Perhaps Panikkar met the director of the journal, Jerzy Turowicz, in Rome during the Second Vatican Council, of which the latter was lay curator.

I also save some items of “Revue thomiste” published beginning in 1893 by the Dominicans of Toulouse. Among others, noted neo-Thomists such as Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson, wrote in them and Raimon read them. I see that in volume no. 70 of 1963, on pages 181-202, while reading on 25th August, 1962 Gilson’s article entitled L’Être et Dieu, Panikkar underlined several phrases such as: «l’ontique n’a pas d’âge... l’ontique n’a pas d’histoire» (ontics is ageless... ontics has no history), «la jonction de l’être et de Dieu n’est pas encore effectuée dans la philosophie de Platon» (the connection between being and God had not yet been made in Plato’s philosophy), «l’histoire de l’être n’a jamais été écrite» (the history of being has never been written).

The God of Being and the “Being of God” published in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin in 1968, and then quoted in the book Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics, 1979, where remarks like the following are striking: «The exciting history of Being has not yet been written» (page 345) and also: «If the history of the God of Being is yet to be written, the history of the ‘existence’ of God must still be lived and experienced» (page 349).

journal. I remember how Raimon read with great interest a text by Franco

The Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha.

attentively read Louis Dupré’s article, Note on the Idea of Religious Truth in the Christian Tradition,

Caterina Rea

«Politics can’t be left to itself»

«Preaching is the first violence»

Panikkar read an article by Wolfhart Pannenbert, Eternity, Truth and Space,

Panikkar estuvo en desacuerdo con Pannenbert.

«Eternity should not be confused with timelessness».

tempiternity.

«I began reading with great interest – but I don’t agree, I ended in disagreement»,

The following were born in this manner: Humanismo Y Cruz (1963),

Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics (1979),

The Intrareligious Dialog...

La nuova innocenza (1993)

In short, it is beautiful to contemplate how leaves from the thicket of magazines become pages in books.

I have never lived in Paris, but I accompanied Raimundo many times to this city where books are sold in stalls along the Seine river. He met the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac there in 1950. Since there was a difference of age and experience between the two men, Panikkar treated de Lubac with respect. In the period when Panikkar began to be interested in de Lubac’s work, the latter was branded by the ecclesiastical authorities as a ‘modernist’ and he was no longer able to teach in Catholic universities. This did not stop Raimundo from meeting him and reading his work.

I know something about this because on my shelves there are about 20 of Henri de Lubac’s books in French, Spanish, English and Italian,

My presentation should, however, begin with a book that today is found in the library of the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in Rome, but it’s right here as if I were holding it in my hands. It’s La rencontre du bouddhisme et de l’Occident (1952).