Beginnings
Born in Kuttanad, in the village of Kavalam on the 12th of September 1930. Father: E.Naryanan Namboodiri of Periyamana Illam, a temple priest well versed in puranic lore.
Mother: M. Meenakshiamma, a pious and devout housewife.

Basic Education
The Kavalam Girls' Primary School, the Kavalam N.S.S. Middle School, The Avittam Thirunal High School at Mankombu and the St. Joseph's High School at Pulinkunnu.

College Days
He studied at Malabar Christian College, Kozhikode, for intermediate during 1946-48. As a student of B.A. Honours in University College, Trivandrum (from 1948) Paniker was taught by stalwarts like Prof.. Sivarama Subramania Iyer, Prof. Sathyavageeswara Iyer, Dr Manuel and Prof. G.Kumara Pillai . His friends at college include Venkata Ramanan IAS and P.S.Habib Muhammad IAS. In 1951 he acquired the Honors degree from the Travancore University. The essays he wrote during this period about P.B. Shelley and T.S. Eliot were published in periodicals such as Kaumudi, the Democrat, etc

Higher Education
In 1971 Ayyappa Paniker acquired AM and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University, U.S. His doctoral dissertation was on the poetry of Robert Lowell under the supervision of Prof. Robert E.Gross. In 1981-82 he did Postdoctoral Research in Yale University (five months) and Harvard University (four months). During this time he visited around 25 Universities in the U.S and became acquainted with internationally renowned poets like James Dickey, John Hollander, Czeslaw Milosz and Allen Ginsberg as well as scholars like Cleanth Brooks, Harold Bloom, Charles Feidelson,Jr., Frederic Jameson and others.

Other Activities
Ayyappa Paniker has been closely associated with the Kumaran Asan Memorial Committee, Thonnakkal, the Authors Guild of India, the All India English Teachers Association, the Comparative Literature Society, the C.V. Raman Pillai Foundation and the Swathi Thirunal Sangeetha Sabha.