I have had to study up on Indian history and before saying anything at all about it I had to make sure I wasn’t making an idiot of myself.. hehehe.
i watched the (2001) movie asoka with shahrukh khan on the weekend .
he was the guy whose detention in an american airport recently gave rise to comment in the indian media…..,,,mmm
it seems that the film was a flop commercially but to be honest I haven’t enjoyed a movie so much in years. it’s a long one about 2 and a half hours. .. best done in 2 or 3 sittings.
it was criticised for being ahistorical. I think its an unworthy criticism. if you want history, there are books. this is an artist’s (santosh sivan) rendition of a critical moment in the life of ashoka.
its pretty clear what happened historically but the problem is the complexity ..
it goes something like this.
Indian history seems to start becoming clear with an empire called Magadha beginning around the 7th century b.c. the well known Siddhartha Gautama started life as a prince of its first dynasty.(haryanka)... it was a period where India started getting a reputation as a land of spiritual values. ( a lot of sorting-out of values)
two dynasties later was the nanda dynasty. it was this formation that effectively scared off alexander’s troops after he managed to cross the Indus in 326 and encountered stiff resistance from one porus.. (parvateshvar) king of panjab. . (Indian historians seem to be in denial about alexander and basically ignore him.)
however Chandragupta maurya, (who had reportedly seen alexander as a child ) overthrew the nanda dynasty 321 after aligning with a philosopher and cunning political economist-- ( one chanakya, author of the famous arthashastra. indias textbook on politics.) . he also drove out the macedonians that alexander had installed in the panjab.
chandragupta’s son, bindusara expanded the kingdom over most of present day India. it was engineered by chanakya and inherited by ashoka.
ashoka initially intended to expand the kingdom further but in the wake of the carnage of the fight against Kalinga, a rival kingdom, he renounced violence. this is the subject matter and climax of the movie. (I cried)
the resolution is of course the imperial consequences of his embrace of the policy of ahimsa.
the mauryan dynasty under ashoka was responsible for the promotion of Buddhaist ideals throughout south east asia. his impact on the history of civilization is considerable.
after the maurya, there were 3 more dynasties including the well known gupta dynasty (240-550 ad) after which the influence of Buddhism declined in India, initially to the advantage of Brahmanism in its various forms then to be finally eclipsed by the moghuls/turcopersians.
now it may be that the film’s critics have a huge understanding of Indian history, whereas I make no pretence that mine is any more than barely superficial. however it may also be that Buddhism is very unpopular in India despite the lip service paid to ashoka, one of the greatest men she has produced to date.
tejas fu.
Posts
