Ask the Author: Shreyas Bhave
Answered Questions (3)
Shreyas Bhave
I read data from quite a lot of sources before building my own plot for the trilogy. You should be familiar with the Ancient Buddhist text 'Asokavadana.' It was one of the first references I used. As it is well known, it is a dramatised story portraying Ashoka as an evil King who suddenly became pious after the kalinga war. When we dig into actual sources, we find that this could not have been the case.
There are great books on Ashoka by Dutch author Wytze Keuning and Charles Allen which investigate his life in a less dramatic and critical way. Allen even raises the question as to whether his conversion was good or bad for his realm as a whole. Those were also great sources. I gathered rest of the bits and snippets from other individual articles I found in many places. A good confession to make now is that I haven't seen Sharukh Khan's 'Asoka' yet :p I guess I should now! As you rightly pointed out, historians disagree on various events of this time period. Like there is a popular theory on Chanakya's that he was the son of Chanak, acourtier of Dhanananda. There is another theory that Chanakya's lived in Taxila and had no connection to dhanananda whatsoever. In his book Chanakya's Chant, Ashwin Sanghi uses the former theory. In the Asoka trilogy, I use the latter one. The facts about this ancient time period are so scarce that noone can confidently say which theory is correct.
Coming to building the books world, a great book i found was 'The land of seven rivers' by Sanjeev Sanyal which is a history of India's geogaphy and explains how the rivers and the lands changed over the centuries.
Finally, sitting tk write a compelling fiction story, I let my imagination roam free within the boundaries of the facts which I had decided to hold as true untill then. Saying that, the final confession I would like to make is that the characters: Kanakdatta and Avarak are completely imaginary. Or then again, Maybe not! :p
There are great books on Ashoka by Dutch author Wytze Keuning and Charles Allen which investigate his life in a less dramatic and critical way. Allen even raises the question as to whether his conversion was good or bad for his realm as a whole. Those were also great sources. I gathered rest of the bits and snippets from other individual articles I found in many places. A good confession to make now is that I haven't seen Sharukh Khan's 'Asoka' yet :p I guess I should now! As you rightly pointed out, historians disagree on various events of this time period. Like there is a popular theory on Chanakya's that he was the son of Chanak, acourtier of Dhanananda. There is another theory that Chanakya's lived in Taxila and had no connection to dhanananda whatsoever. In his book Chanakya's Chant, Ashwin Sanghi uses the former theory. In the Asoka trilogy, I use the latter one. The facts about this ancient time period are so scarce that noone can confidently say which theory is correct.
Coming to building the books world, a great book i found was 'The land of seven rivers' by Sanjeev Sanyal which is a history of India's geogaphy and explains how the rivers and the lands changed over the centuries.
Finally, sitting tk write a compelling fiction story, I let my imagination roam free within the boundaries of the facts which I had decided to hold as true untill then. Saying that, the final confession I would like to make is that the characters: Kanakdatta and Avarak are completely imaginary. Or then again, Maybe not! :p
Shreyas Bhave
I am currently working on the 2nd book of the 'Asoka' trilogy that shall be called 'The Scourge from Taxila'
Shreyas Bhave
By reading a new book in the genre in which I am writing.
That beats writer's block like anything.
That beats writer's block like anything.
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