Though, known as a Historical Drama Series, I will call it a Historical Fiction as a lot of creative freedom has been taken in the storyline. However, what excuses the makers is the fact that hardly anything concrete is known about Ashoka before he became King and came up with his own edicts. The details of his youth, rise to power, and renunciation of violence following the Kalinga campaign come from Buddhist sources which are considered, in many respects, more legendary than historical. There is a lack of and one can say a gap in written evidence between Samrat Chandragupta Maurya and Samrat Ashoka rule. Even then the existing write-ups are shrouded with controversial discrepancies. For example, there is a discrepancy in Jain, Buddhist, and Greek texts about his childhood and about the queens of Bindusara.
So, this is a well-written intersting Fictional Story, which is cinematic and extremely entertaining to watch. What keeps you mesmerised and glued to the screen is the phenomenal acting by all the child artists, especially Siddharth Nigam in the role of Ashoka. Which was probably why he bagged all awards that year. Siddharth being a national level gold medalist gymnast helped in keeping the action scenes real and highly entertaining to watch. The dialogues given to Ashoka in the initial part of the series (about 200 episodes) are not just excellent, but the ideas are extremely forward looking. Without being disrespectful to religious edicts or the society timelines, it manages to challenge the cast system, and addresses ideas of birth, untouchability, dharma, slavery, nationality, womens rights, domestic violence, etc.
What I found unfortunate, was the almost glorification of black magic, not by saying it is good but what all is possible through practicing the art of black magic. Also, there is a remarkable age difference between the time of when Chanakya seemed to have died in reality and when it's shown in the series. According to most historical records, it is predicted that Ashoka was about 29 when Chanakya finally died. Of course his death remains a mystery and as opposed to popular belief that he starved himself, there is a legend that he died as a result of political conspiracy and his hut lit on fire.
For the interaction between Ashoka and his half brothers in the series, Sushim (played by Sumedh Mudgalkar) and Shaimak (Faizan Khan) I would have given this series a 9, however the series deteriorated fast after the adult cast, mainly because of the deterioration in the storyline. Amit Raina tried his best but the changes in Ashok's character to Chanda saw a remarkable failure of the script writer to add dimensions to adult Ashoka. It did not help that both Sushim and Saimak failed to impress. In fact, at this point the most interesting characters were the side actors. The show was quickly wound-up and the end was shoddy.
