Two days before the first atomic bomb test, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was heard to read these lines:
In battle, in the forest, at the precipice in the mountains,
On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows,
In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame,
The good deeds a man has done before defend him.
Anyone know where it comes from? It's complicated by the fact that Oppenheimer actually knew Sanskrit and some sources relating this passage say he translated it himself. I'd guess the Gita because it was a big deal in his life, but I've searched some key words in a couple of different translations and haven't found any matches. Does the above look at all familiar to anyone?
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· 6y · edited 6y
Oppenheimer's own translations were often idiosyncratic and based on the approach of his Sanskrit teacher at Berkeley, Arthur Ryder. I've searched through a scanned copy of Ryder's 1930 translation and found nothing that registers with any of the words of the supposed Oppenheimer part. This particular claim that Oppenheimer said this and that it was from the Gita comes from Vannevar Bush, committed to a memoir about 25 years after supposed incident. Maybe Oppenheimer said this to Bush; maybe he said something else and Bush forgot it over time; maybe he attributed it differently; who knows. But I don't think it's actually from the Gita.
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