Q 01/05

At which July 1945 test did Oppenheimer later say the Gita line 'Now I am become Death' came to mind?

A) Trinity

B) Crossroads

C) Ivy Mike

D) Castle Bravo

Answer · why

A) Trinity

Trinity, the first atomic bomb test, was where Oppenheimer recalled verse 11.32, a text he had read in the original Sanskrit under Arthur Ryder at Ber...

Q 02/05

Which American writer told of bathing his intellect each morning in the Gita's 'stupendous and cosmogonal' philosophy?

A) Ralph Waldo Emerson

B) Henry David Thoreau

C) Walt Whitman

D) Herman Melville

Answer · why

B) Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau wrote the line in Walden, in a passage that pictures his own pond mingling with the sacred Ganges.

Q 03/05

Which 2000 Robert Redford golf film, loosely based on the Gita, casts Krishna's counterpart as a caddie?

A) The Greatest Game Ever Played

B) Seven Days in Utopia

C) The Legend of Bagger Vance

D) Dead Solid Perfect

Answer · why

C) The Legend of Bagger Vance

The Legend of Bagger Vance takes its title character's name from Bhagavan, and the golfer Rannulph Junuh is an echo of Arjuna. Novelist Steven Pressfi...

Q 04/05

Which NASA astronaut of Indian descent took a copy of the Gita to the International Space Station in 2006?

A) Kalpana Chawla

B) Anil Menon

C) Raja Chari

D) Sunita Williams

Answer · why

D) Sunita Williams

Sunita Williams, who practises Hinduism, followed it up on her 2012 flight with an Om symbol and a copy of the Upanishads, and in 2007 visited her anc...

Q 05/05

Vivekananda told Indian youth they would be 'nearer to Heaven' through which game than through the Gita?

A) Cricket

B) Football

C) Wrestling

D) Chess

Answer · why

B) Football

Football was his prescription for bodies he thought too weak for scripture: 'You will understand the Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a lit...