Thanks that makes a huge amount of sense. On Jul 30, 2023, at 11:22 AM, Jon Lebkowsky <jonl@weblogsky.com> wrote:
"In Hinduism, which has a non-linear concept of time, the great god is involved in not only the creation, but also the dissolution. In verse 32, Krishna says the famous line. In it 'death' literally translates as 'world-destroying time,' says Thompson, adding that Oppenheimer’s Sanskrit teacher chose to translate 'world-destroying time' as 'death,' a common interpretation. Its meaning is simple: Irrespective of what Arjuna does, everything is in the hands of the divine."
I figure time and death are both manifestations of impermanence. Is it possible to mistake the meaning of the Sanskrit word in the original? To state the obvious: O’s version wd seem to be an unconscious transformation of the meaning based on what he was observing. I can see where "time" and "death" could both work, if you look from a Buddhist perspective of emptiness/impermanence. Amidst all the current Oppenheimer hype, I appreciated Zia Haider
Rahman, the author of *In the Light of What We Know* - ' who in a recent
tweet declared:
"I hate Oppenheimer a teeny tiny little bit for his knowingly bastard
translation of the B Gita (he was a Sanskritist). An accurate
translation would be "I am become Time, destroyer of worlds" so much
better, quite profound really"
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