The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

by Amartya Sen

The problem with invoking the Rāmāyaṇa to propagate a reductionist account of Hindu religiosity lies in the way the epic is deployed for this purpose – as a document of supernatural veracity, rather than as ‘a marvellous parable’ (as Rabindranath Tagore describes it) and a widely enjoyed part of India’s cultural heritage.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the American team that developed the ultimate ‘weapon of mass destruction’ during the Second World War, was moved to quote Krishna’s words (‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’) as he watched, on 16 July 1945, the awesome force of the first nuclear explosion devised by man.