Oppenheimer quotes the Bhagavad Gita
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Dr. Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita after the first atomic blast in 1945. Justice Katju explores his Sanskrit wisdom & spiritual response to destruction.
Dr Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad Gita
By Justice Markandey KatjuThe first atomic bomb in the world was exploded in Alamagorodo in New Mexico, USA on 16th July 1945 after it was developed by scientists in what is known as the Manhattan Project
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Manhattan Project, is regarded by many as the 'father of the atomic bomb '.
Apart from being a great physicist, Dr. Oppenheimer was also a great scholar of Sanskrit, who had read numerous Sanskrit books in the original, including the Bhagavad Gita.
When the first atomic explosion in the world took place on the early morning of 16th July, 1945 in the desert of Alamogordo, and the blinding light covered the entire sky giving the appearance of arrival of Doomsday, shlokas from the Bhagavad Gita started coming out spontaneously from Dr. Oppenheimer's lips.
When the massive nuclear blast whose blazing light covered most of the sky took place, the following words in Chapter 11, Shloka 12 came out spontaneously in Dr Oppenheimer’s mind:
“Divi surya sahastrasya bhaved yugapad utthita
Yadi bhaah sadrashi sa syat bhaasastasya mahatmanah”
दिवि सूर्यसहस्रस्य भवेद्युगपदुत्थिता ।
यदि भाः सदृशी सा स्याद्भासस्तस्य महात्मनः ॥११- १२ ॥
भावार्थ:
यदि आकाश में हजारों सूर्य एकसाथ उदय हों, तो उनका प्रकाश शायद परमपुरुष के इस विश्वरूप के तेज की समता कर सके।
This can be translated as “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once in the sky, that would be the splendour of the mighty One”.
That shloka is in the chapter where Lord Krishna reveals his massive divine form to Arjuna. Obviously to the human mind the manifestation of such power was a shocking experience — as was Lord Krishna’s form to Arjuna, which had filled Arjuna with astonishment, terror and rapture. Many others watching the blast would have been stunned into blankness. Oppenheimer with his knowledge of the Bhagvadgita could instantly clutch at what his mind with that knowledge could make of this cataclysmic blast. As he said when describing his emotions in a 1965 documentary “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent”.
Oppenheimer recounts that simultaneously with that thought he also remembered that in the Bhagvadgita, on seeing this terrifying form of Krishna, Arjuna was terrified, and asks:” Tell me, who are you?” and Lord Krishna replies (Chapter 11 shloka 32):
“Kaalo asmi loka kshaya kritpraviddho”.
कालो अस्मि लोक-क्षय-कृत प्रवृद्धो
लोकान् समाहरतुम् इह प्रवृत्ति:
Which in Oppenheimer’s understanding meant “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. One of the notable translators of the Bhagavadgita Dr S Radhakrishnan (the second President of India 1962–1967), has translated this line as “Time am I, world destroying”. He meant that Time is the prime mover of the universe. If God is thought of as Time, then He is perpetually creating and destroying. This destruction in keeping with His infinite power is cataclysmic. Hence Oppenheimer’s understanding of that shloka was correct as per the event he witnessed.
In 2023 a film called 'Oppenheimer' was made in which Oppenheimer is seen quoting the verses of the Bhagavad Gita which he had uttered in 1945
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
