Making the Argument for Sanskrit

[Dan Lusthaus]

Matt Kapstein was not blaming the A-Bomb on the Gita, but merely reporting a
well-known fact, which is that when Oppenheimer witnessed the first A-bomb
test, his spontaneous reaction to the awesome power of the explosion was to
recite, from memory, BG 11.32:

Kālo 'smi lokakṣayakṛt pravṛddho

Lokān samāhartum iha pravṛttaḥ

ṛte 'pi tvāṃ na bhaviṣyanti sarve

ye 'avasthitāḥ pratyanīkeṣu yodhāḥ



which, I think we might agree, was an apt utterance for that occasion.



Dan Lusthaus


----Original Message---
Speculations to the effect  that it may have been Oppenheimer's brush with
indology, or his familiarity with the Bhagavadgita (which Heinrich Himmler
also was
familiar with, by the way), that triggered him to construct the atom bomb
can be
discarded as absurd fabrications, attributable to ignorance, charlatanry, or
worse.

Reinhold Grünendahl