From Sanskrit: “Song of the Blessed One”
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One more point concerns Oppenheimer’s recollection that upon witnessing the fireball produced by the Trinity test, he immediately thought of a line from the Sanskrit Bhagavad-Gita: “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2023
He referred to a Sanskrit morality tale when he quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita holy text: "I am become death, destroyer of worlds."
From US News ● Aug. 5, 2015
Until I received your note, my attempt to gear up for this had merely involved opening the Bhagavad-Gita for the first time since taking an undergraduate’s stab at understanding Four Quartets.
From Slate ● Feb. 11, 2015
A lawmaker was sworn in on a Koran for the first time in 2007, and last year the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita was used for the first time, bringing the total to nine options for House lawmakers.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 5, 2015
Oppenheimer thought of a line from the ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita, a dramatic moment in which the god Vishnu declares: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
From "Bomb" by Steve Sheinkin
Other items in the auction were Gandhi's notes on God and the Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita, his portable spinning wheel and two letters about the spiritual discipline of spinning.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the chief scientist, famously recalled the passage of the Bhagavad Gita, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2025
She still finds beauty in certain religious texts, including the Bhagavad Gita — although not the translations by the Hare Krishna movement’s founder.
From New York Times ● May 22, 2024
The entities were first mentioned in the Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic poem narrating the events and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, which later served as the basis for the events of the Bhagavad Gita.
From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2023
Oppenheimer’s recollection of his own reaction has been oft repeated; he claimed that a verse from the Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita leaped into his mind: “ ‘Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.’
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
