https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8H7Jibx-c0
Atomic Age - J. Robert Oppenheimer Quote Uploaded on Sep 26, 2006
James A. Hijiya notes that Oppenheimer’s paraphrase of the Gita is “one of the most-cited and least-interpreted quotations” of the atomic age and provides this introductory quote:
![J. Robert Oppenheimer, from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.]()
After the fireball of the Trinity Test, Oppenheimer said: "I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."
![A rare color photograph of Oppenheimer from October 1945, with General Groves and University of California President Robert Sproul, at the Army-Navy "E" Award ceremony. Source.]()
![Gita verse 11:32]()
Chapter 11, verse 32 of the Gita
Translation:
Lord Krsna said: I am terrible time the destroyer of all beings in all worlds, engaged to destroy all beings in this world; of those heroic soldiers presently situated in the opposing army, even without you none will be spared.
The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer -- Hijiya, James A., Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 144, No. 2, June 2000 (Prof. of History, Univ. of Massachusetts Dartmouth), pp. 123-167
Atomic Age - J. Robert Oppenheimer Quote Uploaded on Sep 26, 2006J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. He is known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb". Taken from the Atomic Age video collection.
James A. Hijiya notes that Oppenheimer’s paraphrase of the Gita is “one of the most-cited and least-interpreted quotations” of the atomic age and provides this introductory quote:J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. He is known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb". Taken from the Atomic Age video collection.
“The essential idea in the reply which Krishna offered to Arjuna was that through the discharge of the duties of one’s station without thought of fruit one was on the way to salvation.” – John McKenzie, Hindu Ethics: A historical and critical essay, Oxford University, 1922, 125.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
A rare color photograph of Oppenheimer from October 1945, with General Groves and University of California President Robert Sproul, at the Army-Navy “E” Award ceremony.
Chapter 11, verse 32 of the Gita
Translation:
Lord Krsna said: I am terrible time the destroyer of all beings in all worlds, engaged to destroy all beings in this world; of those heroic soldiers presently situated in the opposing army, even without you none will be spared.
In fine, Prof. Hijiya notes:
[quote]Far from trapping Oppenheimer in a fog, Hindu ideas helped liberate him to act and to create his magnum opus, the atomic bomb. The Gita may have made the difference between Oppenheimer and hamlet. ‘Uncounted millions,’ claimed Arthur Ryder in his introduction to the Gita, ‘have drawn from it comfort and joy. In it they have found an end to perplexity, a clear, if difficult, road to salvation.’…A verse that Ryder used as an epigraph to one section of his introduction and that Oppenheimer used (in his own translation) as an epitaph for Franklin Roosevelt might well serve to describe Oppenheimer himself: For man is fashioned from his faith, And is what he believes. (17:3).[unquote] (opcit.,p.166)