A passage from the Bhagavad-Gita written in Sanskrit. Ms. Sarah Welch (2018, CC 4.0)
Oppenheimer Could Read Sanskrit
Oppenheimer touched on some of the most impressive feats in the scientist’s life outside of physics. One was his penchant for languages. He was fluent in Greek, Latin, French, German, and Dutch, but he wasn’t content to be fluent in a mere five languages. In the movie, lovers Jean Tatlock and Oppenheimer read profound passages of the Bhagavad-Gita during an encounter. While this is a dramatization for the film, Oppenheimer really did learn to read Sanskrit, a language nobody has used for common communication since about 1350 CE. He was always up for new intellectual challenges, and given his big-brain energy, things that actually challenged him were exceedingly rare. After meeting with a professor of Sanskrit at the University of California, he requested private instruction on the long-dead language. As with his many other languages, he quickly became fluent.