Science Without Conscience Is the Ruin of the Soul

Robert Oppenheimer’s Tryst with the Bhagavad Gita.

The quotation, “Science without conscience is the ruin of the Soul” was not coined by a pious Oriental mystic. It was composed by Francois Rabelais, a famous 16th century writer of the French Renaissance. He shocked and amused European society with risqué, often vulgar tales. But he also wrote a moving letter to his son in which satire is interspersed with paternal advice. There he wrote: “And remember my son, Science without conscience is the ruin of the Soul.”

The Italian renaissance was freeing Europeans from the intellectual intolerance and persecution of the church. The age of Enlightenment and scientific enquiry had commenced in Western Europe. Watching these developments, Rabelais ceased his satires and pondered over the emerging signs of conflict between knowledge and morality, the use of advanced weaponry in wars and its tragic consequences upon humanity.

Rabelais’ words were certainly known to Robert Oppenheimer, called “the father of the atom bomb”—a title not to be envied if one remembers how two atom bombs were dropped on two defenceless Japanese cities just a few days before Japanese surrender. It was one of the darkest events in history which changed the very idea of humanity. The devastations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was more terrifying than Dante’s description of Inferno.

In 1942, in the midst of the Second World War, Lt Gen Leslie Groves Jr appointed renowned physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer and a group of scientists spent years designing the atomic bomb. The aim was intended to defeat Nazi Germany and her fascist allies as well as imperial Japan. The United States also knew that Nazi Germany was racing to make its atomic bomb. The site chosen at Los Alamos and the activities there were wrapped in absolute secrecy as scientists prepared the atom bomb. Their work was completed on 16 July 1945, when the scientists witnessed the world’s first nuclear explosion.

This article is not so much about the nuclear explosions that unleashed a new and terrifying weapon for mass destruction, but the reaction of Dr Oppenheimer who helped to build it. It is also about Robert Oppenheimer’s enchantment with the Bhagavad Gita.

The arch imperialist Warren Hastings, first British Governor General of India called it “the greatest work of religious literature in the world.” Hastings requested the Board of Directors of East India Company in London to commission the Sanskrit scholar Charles Wilkins to translate the Bhagavad Gita into English, “so that the world may know of its grandeur.” Dr Robert Oppenheimer was the son of German Jewish immigrants in America. His father, Julius Oppenheimer, made good and prospered in commerce as they had done in Europe for two millennia after leaving their homeland. Young Robert grew up in luxury, received the best education, and acquired effulgent fame as a physicist.

Various theories have been put forward to explain the great physicist’s fascination for Hinduism. Oppenheimer first discovered the book in the early 1930s and began learning Sanskrit in order to be able to read the original version. He was quite young when he began reading Hindu metaphysics, especially the Bhagavad Gita. He called it “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”

It was a time of youthful emotional turmoil when he sought to solve the riddle of existence. He reflected to his brother: “I believe that through discipline… we can achieve serenity… I believe that through discipline we learn to preserve what is essential to our happiness in more and more adverse circumstances… Therefore I think that all things which evoke discipline: study, and our duties to men and to the commonwealth, war… ought to be greeted by us with profound gratitude; for only through them can we attain to the least detachment; and only so can we know peace.”

The Bhagavad Gita became a friend and guide. He kept the book near his writing table. Eager to propagate the thoughts of the book he also distributed copies among his friends.

Oppenheimer’s biographer Robert Jungk describes the atom bomb test explosion on 16 July 1945 at 5 am. There was a blinding brilliance that grew and then toned down.

Oppenheimer later said, “Well, it worked.” But watching the atomic explosion Oppenheimer was reminded of the Bhagavad Gita’s description of Vishwarupa Darshana or vision of the universe. In Sanskrit it is: “Divi Surya sahasrasya bhavet yugapadutthitaa / Yadi bhaah sadrushee saa syadbhasastasya mahaatmanah.”

In English: “If there be the effulgence of a thousand suns bursting forth all at once in the heavens, even that would hardly approach the splendour of the mighty Lord.”

After sometime, sensing what had been unleashed upon the world, Oppenheimer thought of another line in the Bhagavad Gita. “Kaalo asmi loka shayakrit pravriddhah, lokan samaahartum iha pravritha.” In English: “I am the Inflamed Time, the destroyer of the worlds.”

These words in the Bhagavad Gita are uttered by a furious Lord Krishna when his favourite devotee, Prince Arjun refuses to take up arms against his royal cousins and shed blood in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Lord Krishna, the human incarnation of the divine preserver, rebukes him by saying that Arjun was merely the instrument of the divine will and did not decide anything.

Troubled, perhaps filled with remorse at the terrible destruction caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer’s biographer hints that Robert Oppenheimer went to the Bhagavad Gita as a means of understanding his own life and his actions. That he (Oppenheimer) was not a free agent or determiner of destiny. That though he, like Arjun, was against violence but he became instrument of a greater Will. This can raise the question: who was the divine commander who ordered the atomic explosion? Can President Harry Truman be ever equated with Krishna, mortal incarnation of God?

Throughout his career, Robert Oppenheimer made references to the Bhagavad Gita which continued to influence him during his lifetime. When asked which books influenced his outlook on life Oppenheimer stated that the Bhagavad Gita along with “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot (who was also inspired by Hindu Upanishads) and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” guided and influenced him.

Cillian Murphy, who plays Oppenheimer in the film, has said: “I did read the Bhagavad Gita in preparation, and I thought it was an absolutely beautiful text, very inspiring. I think it was a consolation to him, he kind of needed it and it provided him a lot of consolation, all his life.”

In an NBC news documentary, The Decision to Drop the Bomb in 1965, Oppenheimer recalled “We knew the world would not be the same… few people laughed… few cried… most people were silent…I then remembered the lines from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita…”

Did Dr Oppenheimer realise the truth of Rabelais’ observation: Science without conscience is the ruin of the soul?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Achala Moulik is a former Education Secretary, Government of India. She has authored books on history, literature, international relations and is also a novelist. For her work on Russian history and culture, she was awarded the Pushkin Medal by the President of Russia. She is now member of the jury for awarding the newly established Leo Tolstoy International Peace Prize.

The Sanskrit quotes from the Bhagavad Gita and English translation have been provided by Mr S Ramamoorthi, Sanskrit scholar and former Chief Secretary of Maharashtra.