A bomb - Vedic connections

Just the other day, Paul Tibbet the chap who dropped the first nuclear bomb on human populace died at 92. I wondered, like a fellow blogger Happy Kitten, if he had a single nights peaceful sleep for the six decades after the event that killed 140,000 Japs (and many more years later). But what mystified me was the report that throughout his life, Tibbets seemed more troubled by people's objections to the bomb than by his having led the crew that killed tens of thousands of Japanese in a single stroke. And he insisted he slept well, believing that using the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more lives than they erased because they eliminated the need for a drawn-out invasion of Japan. In a 1975 interview he said: "I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did... I sleep clearly every night." Some guy that.

After the tests at Los Almos, Oppenheimer the father of the A bomb, said - Quoting from the
Bhagavad Gita Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds - The full verse in the Bhagavad Gita verse 32 from Chapter 11 is "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." kalo 'smi loka-kshaya-krit pravriddho, lokan samahartum iha pravrittah. He actually, mistranslated it to say only the one part, as translated above.



Like the late
Turkish President Ecevit, in this time of uncertainty (Check the link if you want to read about the impact of Gita on Oppenheimer) Oppenheimer often revisited one of his favorite books, the Bhagavad-Gita, and from it drew encouragement that steadied him in his work. Oppenheimer understood the Gita and other Sanskrit texts well enough to formulate a code for living that, while the product of his unique mind and experience, nevertheless showed signs of its origins in the sacred literature of India. Although the scientist himself never reduced his homemade Hinduism to a catalogue of principal tenets, a distillation of his words and actions might produce a short list of three: duty, fate, and faith. Without the inspiration of the Gita, Oppenheimer might not have been able or willing to direct Los Alamos.
Like Tibbet, Oppenheimer never regretted his action, comparing himself to Arjuna in the Gita. Many years later, somebody asked him after the Trinity tests if that was the first nuclear explosion. Pensively he said “Yes, in modern times” never providing further explanations. He was supposedly going back to passages from the Mahabharata describing a nuclear event that occurred some 8,000 -10,000 years ago.

Leslie Drake & Berlitz quoted from the Mahabharata (Karna Parva) in their books, to create ominous text that people then re-quoted for years. The quote explained a catastrophe…

Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the cities of the Vrishnis and
Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendour. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas…the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause and the birds turned white. After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected…… to escape from this fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment.

Dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy... A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts. All points of the compass were lost in darkness. Fierce wind began to blow upward, showering dust and gravel. Birds croaked madly... the very elements seemed disturbed. The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon. Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy... over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely. "

But this is all sounding wrong to me – The Mahabharata mentions of a number of Bhramastras being used, not just once - also some parts were about the scene many years after the war!! So many inconsistencies, I decided to check and found no such text in the translated Karna Parva. Some parts could be discerned in Mausala parva.

C
omments by Colin Biggs revealed that sentences from various parts of the epic were cleverly joined by Leslie & Berlitz for effect. Berlitz incidentally used Protap Chandra Roy's Mahabharata translation of 1889 to quote in his 1974 book ‘The Bermuda Triangle’.

A single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. Karna Parva, section 34
It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas Mausala Parva section 1
It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas…the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Drona Parva section 201
The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause and the birds turned white. After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected…… Mausala Parva, section 2
To escape from this fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment. Drona Parva section 197

More fuel was added to the fire by interconnections with other mysteries in the locale such as explained
in this site and by many others (Check on Google & you will go after a wild goose chase thorough a 10,000 year period covering India, Europe, Atlantis, UFO’s and so on…).

Oppeneheimer also said - Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries. Yes, he could be right. There is so much mystery & history behind the texts in the Vedas & the epics that it will take much convoluted thought to even understand the implications..


I found that the Atharva Veda even explains Nuclear Fission. Then again there are the Vimana mentions, flights to the moon, galactic wars. It was starting to become very heady, so finally, I decided to leave it all to the proficient sages who brave the elements of the Himalayas & other places. Not for us mere mortals.
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9 comments:

Nanditha Prabhu said...

Maddy sir,
I had been to the bomb hit area in hiroshima ....i could not sleep properly that night! the damage and long lasting impressions it has left on generations to come is profound...i wonder how tibbet could sleep in peace!
may be the power of bhagavath gita it can create peace and destruction depending on the message we are able to digest!:)

Anonymous said...

Ha Ha Ha,
Finally even Maddy has to come back to the roots to find explanations of latset scientific findings. I am gals that you are now referring to the instuction manaul for the world- "Bhagavad Geeta". Yes, the nuclear holocaust is defined in viswarupa darsanam.And definition of the atom, evolution,relativity theory all found a palce in the ancient scriptures. Will talk more on person.

Hari

Anonymous said...

In my younger days, at the feet of my guru-my father, I read sanskrit, vedas and Bhagavad Geetha. A note of caution is required while using the Google to dig out the myriad interpretations of what is found in the ancient scriptures of India. Vedas were passed from generations to generations in unwritten form and the amazingly rich sanskrit vocabulary helped to do this. In sanskrit, a text has many interpreations, and it is not wise to interpret them using the human experience of the 20th century.

Astras used in Mahabharata or Ramayana were different from the 'tangible shastras (the weapons made of steel or wood). Astras were created when the launcher embeds the desired power in a object ( even a blade of grass), and the object grows in power much like a 'pokeman'and attacks the enemy. A pokeman is closer to an 'astra'.

About Oppenheimer. No doubt he was an astute scholar but read perhaps the Bhagavad Gita in an English version- the late Annie Besant produced a very good translation.
After he was severely chastisised by the Mccarthy witch -hunt, and his achievements were reduced to a naught as a result, surprisingly he never quoted from Bhagavad Gita to explain the duress he was under. There is plenty to quote from there.

I can produce quotes from Rig Veda
which seem to predict the presence of 'monoclonal antibodies' such is the power of the language of Vedas. Let us be proud of the Vedas, but never destroy their credibility by flights of Google fancy!!

Happy Kitten said...

Well.... it just tells me again and again that nothing is new in this world.. this world has seen it all... it just happens in different times..

if the Human nature has not changed over the years.. his passion, love, hate, jealousy.. why should there be any change in his intelligence? Man has not grown more intelligent.. but the only problem is that this intelligence is used more for power and money than for peace and happiness.. and hence it brings self destruction. and God planned it this way when he gave us Human beings the "Free Will".. it is the self destructive button that he built in the Human computer...when he goes beyond his calling in this world...

Maddy said...

Nanditha - It is all a question of belief. Tibbet & Oppenheimer lived with their clear belief. What strengthened it is a matter of conjencture.

Hari - Not really. What I found out was that we are using various watered up or watered down versions of these scriptures. Using those to find meaning may not be quite right. On the other hand, getting to the core of everything is something we tend to do often...the mystery makes you drill deeper & deeper sometimes.

Ram - Thank you sir, for dropping by, I am so happy to read a serious comment like yours. However, I think you did not follow my train of thought. I was talking about Oppenheimer's belief and a misquoted part of one epic. When i tried to find out more, I found that all kinds of people had taken advantage of the hallowed nature of these texts to create wrong auras. Like the flights to moon, fights with Atlantis etc.

There was no comment decrying the epics or what is contained in them, And well, a tool available for me to tap into others intelligence and creations is Google. All I concluded was that what I found was heady and that proper & complete explanations were not readily available. You were a lucky one to have been provided a decent understanding of these scriptures. Unfortunately I did not have such an opportunity.

HK - Right you are. I have also wondered about 'the world has seen it all'. The past & the future and what life is all about. But one thing confuses me. Would it not have been easy for the creator to provide answers more readily. Should one have to spend eons to figure out the right & the wrong and othe answers?? and that to to a certain chosen few?

John Stockwell said...

This bomb stuff is all b.s.

The passages are all cherrypicked from
various and disparate parts of the
Mahabharata. They are out of context
quotes that have been changed in their
meaning to appear to agree with things
we recognize from nuclear blasts.

I would challenge anybody to compare
with a pre-nuclear age translation of
the Mahabharata. For example the
one at:
http://www.mahabharataonline.com/translation/index.php


Absolutely none of the items listed in this blog holds up to this comparison.

Maddy said...

John..

that was generally the point I was making..that all those claims were frivolous...I hope you read my inferences interspersed with the text..

Jim said...

Nanditha Prabhu said... November 16, 2007


of 7
Blogger Nanditha Prabhu said...
I had been to the bomb hit area in hiroshima ....i could not sleep properly that night! the damage and long lasting impressions it has left on generations to come is profound...i wonder how tibbet could sleep in peace!

I will explain to you how he slept in peace.
The Japanese who had ruthlessly invaded China, the Philippines and the Pacific and attacked the United States In A Sneak Attack and bombed Pearl Harbor where 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. The Japanese were a very cruel enemy to All they attacked and fought against. They were noted for their fanatical willingness to die rather than surrender to their enemy. I suppose not only out of disgrace but believing they would receive the same barbaric treatment they had meted out to others. To avoid a huge loss of life, at least to our soldiers that would invade Japan, not to speak of the wholesale slaughter of the Japanese civilians caught in the destruction that would result from an invasion our government dropped the Atom Bomb on Japan. The Japanese had already been heavily bombed and were not willing to surrender and had vowed to fight to the death when invaded. The Japanese public were warned ahead of time that we were going to destroy their cities using atomic bombs, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/truman-leaflets/

Before the first bomb was dropped the people were warned and so were their leaders but they refused to surrender. Unlike the Japanese Military that ruthlessly attacked without provocation and raped their enemy physically and materially the United States offered a humane surrender which was spurned by their leaders.
So who should have had a problem sleeping that night?

Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945

TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE:
America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.

We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.

We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city.

Jim said...

Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan.

You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.

ATTENTION JAPANESE PEOPLE. EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.
Because your military leaders have rejected the thirteen part surrender declaration, two momentous events have occurred in the last few days.

The Soviet Union, because of this rejection on the part of the military has notified your Ambassador Sato that it has declared war on your nation. Thus, all powerful countries of the world are now at war with you.

Also, because of your leaders' refusal to accept the surrender declaration that would enable Japan to honorably end this useless war, we have employed our atomic bomb.

A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s could have carried on a single mission. Radio Tokyo has told you that with the first use of this weapon of total destruction, Hiroshima was virtually destroyed.

Before we use this bomb again and again to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, petition the emperor now to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better, and peace-loving Japan.

Act at once or we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.
EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.
Source: Harry S. Truman Library, Miscellaneous historical document file, no. 258.