Indian directors should be ashamed of themselves for presenting such distorted versions of great historical characters who are revered in India and around the world.
A movie is a work of art, not a historical treatment. Many films use love stories when retelling historical events to the audience. How many films do you know that reflect history accurately?
NO movie is historically accurate if it is a good movie. A good movie tells a story that gives us a manual of how to interprete the chaotic world. Thus, a good movie can never be historically accurate. It can come near accurateness, but then it usually tells only a small part of a life. Thus, I would not expect that any movie about Ashoka would be historically correct. A documentation could try to be historically correct, but even a documentation chooses a sample of facts out of a myriad of facts and tells these facts in a certain context. I have read three history books which mention Ashoka (Keay: "India - A History", publ. 2000, Thapar: "Early India - From the Origins to AD 1300", publ. 2002, Thapar: "Asoka and the decline of the Mauryas" pub. 1961, revised 1997 [according to Thapar's Asoka-book Devi, the mother of the Buddhist missionaries, was not even legally married to Ashoka]) after viewing the movie. There is really not much known about this great human.
Only one inscription mentions a name of one of his many queens
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/asoka1b.html#The_Queen (as cited from Thapar’s Asoka-book: the second Minor Rock inscription) which is incidentally Karuvaki, which was therefore chosen in the movie as his first love. The movie's love scenes are made in agreement with today's view maintained in Bollywood movies of "one love for a lifetime" which is historically quite unconvincing with respect to the king's harem. Nevertheless this love story generates a nice fairy tale story which complements in my eyes gracefully the tragic part of the psychological damaged ogre who in the end turns into a Buddhist. Again, historically more accurate is probably that Ashoka was very early supporting Buddhist ideas as already the founder of the Maurya empire (grandfather Chandragupta) supported Jainism which also doesn't belong to mainstream Hinduism or as his father Bindusara patronised Ajivikas.
Moreover, whoever would discuss the artistic settings and costumes in Eisenstein's historical dramas? Those are accepted as part of the artistic freedom used to create a myth based on a historical person. What about other films based on historical persons? Those remembered for their artistic value never depict a historical reality as recollected by historians (further examples: "Queen Christina (1933)" by Rouben Mamoulian, "The Scarlet Empress (1934)" by Sternberg, "El Cid (1961)" by Anthony Mann, "Cleopatra (1963)" by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, "Elizabeth (1998)" by Shekhar Kapur).
Sivan's 'Asoka' is for me in the league of 'Ivan Groznyy' (1944) by Eisenstein, '2001 – A Space Odyssey' (1968) by Kubrick, and 'A throne of blood' (1957) by Kurosawa, my favourite classics. Sivan has an artistry of visualisation nearly as good as Eisenstein but with a modern touch which make his visualisations more agreeable to me. His pictures feel more poetic to me, he has a knack for lighting a scene, composing a picture, and of capturing the transitional of a moment so eminently important in cinema. His stories of development and change compare well to the stories of Eisenstein and Kubrick. The ethical problems he dissects compare well to Kurosawa's epic visualisations IMO.
To me who has read Greek sagas as "Iliad" and "Odyssey", the Persian "Shahnameh", probably shortened versions of "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana", Nordic sagas as "Beowulf", "Cuchulain", and "Sigurd", modern sagas as "The Lord of the Rings", many fairy tales, and books about the importance of myth in human life as a beacon to sail the turbulent seas of real life, to me the film "Asoka" tells a beautiful myth.
The historical blunders in this movie are stupendous.
But you know, that there exists astonishingly small historical evidence? Indians did not bother to write historical compendiums. Compare our knowledge about the Greek Alexander (356–323 BC) who lived earlier to that what is known about Indian Ashoka (304–232 BC). Of Alexander even the names of his generals and his battle manoeuvres are known. Of the emperor Ashoka astoundingly few facts are known; in principle the only hard facts are the stone engraved edicts where for instance the only named queen is Karuvaki. According to Thapar's Asoka-book Devi, the mother of the Buddhist missionaries, was not even legally married to Ashoka.
I have the impression, there existed different attitudes concerning science (as a recording and analysis of progressive cultural steps) in Europe and China in contrast to India based on the different cultural traditions. For example, the Chinese historian Sima Qian wrote the first systematic Chinese historical text from 109 BC to 91 BC on events beginning 2600 BC. Citation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian#Reliabilit y:
Sima Qian "did have fairly reliable materials at his disposal—a fact which underlines once more the deep historical-mindedness of the Chinese. The Chinese were
also keen on documenting all of their technological achievements (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Science_and_technology).
Why exist there so far less records of Indian history than of Greek, Roman, or Chinese history? Why was Ashoka forgotten while Alexander's life was extensively written about? Why is Chandragupta Maurya's reign mostly reconstructed from Greek historians' accounts instead from Indian sources? I have the impression that India's well-educated persons had no interest in history as the record of incidents to be remembered and to be learned from by later generations. Might this be a result of seeing the world as Maya (the visual marginal ephemeral aspect of the unfathomable constitutive eternal God)?
Philosophy on the other hand seems to be an integral part of Indian culture. As far as I can see there survived many more philosophical than historical texts. For example the Rigveda texts
were preserved and codified by an extensive body of Vedic priesthood as the central philosophy of the Iron Age Vedic civilization for centuries
by oral tradition (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rig-veda#Dating_and_historical_context). Other parts of the Indian heritage as for instance historical events seemed not as important to be preserved.
it diminished the importance of Ashoka's profound change of heart, his embracing of Buddhism and spreading the message of peace and love. Ashoka became 'Ashoka the Great' AFTER the Kalinga War and that aspect was dealt with in one small paragraph at the end of the films
Many complained that Buddhism is not depicted enough. In my view the development of the film-Ashoka shows a continuously growing inclination to Buddhism. He is an soldier all his life (he seeks and finds the sword of his imperial grandfather, battles to extend the empire), ruthless as a leader of men (see Taxila war), who becomes cruel when he secedes from humanitarianism, because his mother was murdered through the machinations of his own half-brother (revenge is also often used in sagas to account for a fall into cruelty). During his time in exile (which is a very often used cliché in sagas of all times and cultures) he shows the first inclinations to Buddhism and finds his love. The mother of his children and his brother bring further acquaintance with Buddhism. The monks on the Kalinga battle field are a further symbol that equals Buddhism with humanitarianism.
But I think if one only watches "Asoka" as a trashy Bollywood film then one will not see all the hints the film gives in the pictures (for example the recurring Buddhist monk who for me is a symbol of Buddha, the living monk or Buddha is exchanged during the phase of Ashoka's cruelty for stony Buddha statues, though those were first allowed to be erected only after the real Ashoka's death (233 BC) during the second century BC).
For me this film shows a grand script which uses mythical themes in a proficient way and seamlessly interweaves the mythic with the philosophical (Dharma, Buddhism). In my view this script uses the "love lost and found again" theme far better and more consistently that those of "Veer-Zaara" and "DDLJ" which have a far larger fan following. But I concede, you have to like myth and sagas, you have to find something important for yourself in this film, otherwise it will not speak to you aside of perhaps the cinematography.
As to "his embracing of Buddhism and spreading the message of peace and love" you should not mingle the Buddhist legends and the historical evidence (rock edicts).
--- each brain develops its own preferences ---
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