Chakravartin Ashok Samrat is based on the life of Ashoka the great , the Third Emperor of the Mauryan Dynasty of India.
The story is about Ashok's journey to the throne, his struggles, his promise to restore his mother's honor.
The story starts with Chandragupt Maurya taking up Jainism and leaving magadh in the hands of Acharya Chanakya. Chandragupta's son Bindusar defeats his elder brother Justin who's the son of his step mother Helena, and becomes the emperor of Pataliputra. Seeing Bindusar's skills,Mir Khurasan proposes his daughter Noor's hand to bindusar.Bindusar accepts the proposal for political reasons,thereby upsetting his first wife and the chief queen of Magadh,Charumitra who's also mother of his eldest son Sushim.
Helena hates Bindusar and wans her son to be the emperor so she plots against him and sends her men to kill him. Bindusar is pronounced dead and Helena declares Justin the King.But Bindhusar is saved by a beautiful and intelligent Brahmin girl Subhadrangi. Impressed by her skills, the king falls in love with her and marries her.after few days, he leaves for magadh promising Subhadrangi,whom he named as Dharma, to come back and take her with him.
Justin wasgoing to get crownedbut Bindhusar turns up leaving everyone shocked.He then marries noor, but on their wedding night he tells her about his marriage with Dharma and doesn't accept her leaving her heartbroken.Noor then starts having an affair with Justin who is madly in love with her.
Pregnant Dharma waits for Bindhusar's return.Bindusar sends Mir to get her to Pataliputra but seeing his daughter Noor heartbroken due to Bindusar not accepting her,he tries to kill Dharma.but CGM's soul saves her and she gives birth to a boy whom she names Ashok(without sorrow). Bindhusar thinks dharma s dead and starts mourning for her.
14 years pass by
After 14 years,Young ashok is now a fierce and brave boy. Chanakya thinks sushim and siamak are not right heirs to throne, he wanted to secure magadh future from greeks and set out to look for rightful heir to succeed bindhusar reign. He come across a brave young boy who calls himself a samrat vanraaj, impressed with his skills chanakya follows him to forest, there he sees dharma and gets to know she's bindhusar wife and this boy s magadh prince. He asks her to come to pataliputra but she refuses saying she don't want to get to involved in any royal politics where one kills to other, and she says how bindhusar tried to kill her, but chanakya says she's mistaken, he would never something like this.somehow he convinces her to take her to pataliputra.
chanakya takes the boy to palace, and appoints dharma as physician. Slowly dharma get to know bindhusar s not at fault, it's noor conspiracy. Here bindhusar bonds with ashok well, sushim eldest prince hates him seeing this, but siamak who's a kind prince bonds well with ashok. Inside palace we see queens plotting against each other to secure their son's future. Chanakya along with radhagupt and other disciples r busy trying to protect throne from evil and other enemies of magadh. Here ashok bonds well with bindhusar and siamak but hated severely by sushim.
Bindhusar conquers ujjain and fixes royal alliance with ujjain princess Agnishikha for his brother Justin. Justin and noor on the other hand r very upset with alliance who r hopelessly in love with each other . Agnishikha on the other hand turns out to be very ambitious and revengeful, she wants to avenge her father's death. She along with her uncle starts plotting against magadh. Here they introduce ahankara who's agnishika sister who's very beautiful and feisty. Sushim falls in love with ahankara, ahankara also started liking sushim, we see kind of disliking between ashok and ahankara initially. Chanakya who senses danger s against this political alliance and even expresses his concern to bindhusar. But somehow helena manages to convinces him.
bindhusar declare a competition for princes to test their abilities, he also allows ashok to participates in competition much to sushim disapproval. Somehow sushim tricks ashok and wins CGM sword leaving ashok upset on his failure. Marriage preparation goes on with full swing, noor tells Justin siamak s his son, chanakya get to know about their conspiracy and informs ashok about this, ashok helps royal family and saves king. Bindhusar who's very impressed with ashok declares him to be magadh finest warrior and gives him CGM sword.
bindhusar declares ahankara father death penalty, in lakh grih incident ahankara loses her sister, sushim starts hating ahankara leaving her shocked with his changed behavior, ahankara on other hand after knowing about her family conspiracy , goes against them and remains loyal to truth. She gets heartbroken with all incidents and tries to kill herself, but ashok saves her at right time, and asks her to be brave, here we see starting of beautiful friendship.
Ashok somehow manages to find aginshikha uncle, and presents him infront of
bindhusar, he before taking Helena name, justin declares himself as culprit, as
he wanted throne for himself, and manages noor and helena and convinces them to
live for his son siamak. Helena infront of everyone kills her own son to gain
king trust. And take a oath to avenge his son death.
On the other hand mir get know dharma being alive, and tries to kil her, ashok at last get to know whole truth and his identity, and tries to collect evidences against mir, and with the help of chanakya gets succeeds , in this process ahankara losts her mother who was siding evil people, leaving ahankara with a toddler. Bindhusar who gets enraged after knowing whole truth imprisons mir, who takes whole blame on himself solely. Family reunites.
Chanakya believes ashok ll be the great ruler of magadh because of his bravery and oath of serving motherland till last breath, but ashok never wanted the throne , as he thinks his brother siamak 'll be the perfect ruler of magadh. Bindhusar leaves to kashi making sushim prabhari raaja, who makes magadh people lives miserable with his cruelty, on other hand sushim tortures ahankara threatens her to kill her brother if she backs out from marriage. Ashok disguises himself as Agradoot to protect people from sushim evilness , ahankara in fit of anger stabs sushim, ashok takes the blame on himself to save her, bindhusar declares death penalty for ashok in anger, ahankara goes to jail and meets ashok and confesses her love for him, but he rejects saying he always treated her as his friend.
Ahankara goes to bindhusar and tells him it's she who stabbed sushim not ashok, but he refuses to believe her, somehow dharma manages to save sushim, chanakya asks ahankara to tell the truth. She tells the tortures she bored because of sushim, king sclods his son, and promises ahankara to bulild new bhavan for her and her brother in pataliputra. Ahankara leaves palace by promising ashoka that she waits for him till her last breath.
Chanakya oath to protect magadh creates hinderance in the way of helena, who at last created a plot against chanakya. Meanwhile chanakya came to know that sometime, charumitra practised black magic on dharma. Sushim hated chanakya as he always favored ashok over him, khallatak who was jealous of him because of his position , joins their hands with helena, siamak also joins in this because he believes his dear ones justin , noor were killed because of ashok, noor with the help of daastan who belongs to khurasan captures magadh and tries to kill dharma, ashok while protecting his mother kills her accidentally infront of siamak. Helena brainwashes him against ashok, so he together all people traps chanakya and kills him brutally, leaving whole magadh and ashok mourn over his death.Here ashok takes a oath of completing akhand bharat nirman and promises himself to kill all of them who r the cause of his guru death.Meanwhile mir escapes from prison and joins selecus nicator.
Bindhusar makes ashok crown Prince , magadh faces a challenge from taxililia which s captured by keechak who tortures people and wants to conquer magadh. Ashok sets his journey towards taxililia, helena convinces amatya rakshas to take revenge from chanakya by failing his disciple , who leaves to taxilia and joins keechak, meanwhile dharma gets to know she's pregnant with her second child, keechak men attacks ashok ship, and blasts it. Everyone in magadh thinks he's dead except dharma.
Ashok saves himself and reaches to another ship where he meets kaurwaki who's kaling princess who set to free her father who was captured by keechak. She hates magadh people , so ashok keeps his identity secret, he saves her many times from troubles, she starts falling for him, devrath on other hand start helping ashok , keechak captures kwk , there she gets to know about ashok, in fit of anger and trying to protect her father she helps keechak which makes the loss of so many innocent people making ashok angry, at last keechak captures dharma, on getting this ashok kills him and helps kwk and her father to set free. Together everyone goes to magadh.
In magadh bindhusar welcomes jagannath warmly and promises him to set free his kingdom which was captured by his brother in his absence. This don't go well with evil clan and trying to show ashok as weak heir infront of bindhusar and they somehow gets succeeds.
Everyone tries to kill bindhusar but it backfires, drupad who's bindhusar other son gets killed, everyone blames ashok, bindhusar again declares death penalty for him, but ashok proves himself innocent and shows evidence that proves helena culprit, leaving shocked bindhsar who imprisons helena immediately.
Ashok sets to kaling to help jagannath and frees their kingdom, jagannath who was pretending to be gud starts showing his colors, on getting to know her daughter's love towards ashok he gets angry and insults ashoka.,who inturn fights with him and leaves for magadh in anger.
On other hand mir with selecus captures magadh , sushim escapes and tells this to ashok, ashok frees his family by killing his enemies. Helena gets captured again, meanwhile dharma gives birth to baby boy. Helena calls ashok and tells him entire truth about chanakya death and siamak identity, as she knows it triggers him.
As expected ashok becomes chand and starts killing everyone who comes infront of him, and stabs sushim in royal court in front everyone, on seeing this charumitra manipulates bindhusar, who gets angry seeing him out of control , and exiles him for 10 years, ashok inturn breaks his all relation with bindhusar in anger.
Dharma choses to be with ashok for his own sake, which angers bindhusar and he inturn breaks his all relations with her. On other hand helena plans her own death with help of charumitra and others. And also sends a man to kill ashok , kwk comes to ashok but he sends her back to her father promising her to meet when right time comes. Dharma meets ashok, the man who was send by sushim tries to kill them, to escape from him ashok and dharma jumps from valley and gets saved miraculously, ashok promises to return back to full fill his guru dream and punishing his culprits one day.
Edited by .Subha. - 7 years ago10 years later
A ruthless ashok in the name of chand , along with his mother and brother vitt Settled in ujjain in a merchant house who's dhaniram , resides with his daughter devi. Ashok meanwhile becomes more ruthless , but deep within his heart he s still a kind man which witnessed by devi, who gives him food at odd times.
In kaling kwk only ambition in life s to meet ashok and makes many futile attempts for that much to jagannath displeasure. Bindhusar becomes more harsh within these years in the absence of dharma. With the help of black magic charu makes sushim more stronger than ever.
Dharma stops talking with ashok to control his anger, devi on other hand gets suspicious about threm and tries to know more but failes in that. On other hand nirajan who's ujjain governor gets to know about ashok residing in ujjain an sets to kill him there. And kwk also gets to know his location and goes to ujjain lieng to her father. But fails to meet ashok after so many attempts.
On other hand sushim reaches to his place but RG and nayak helps them in mean time, with the help of devi and dhaniram. Ashok leaves with his family to other village, meanwhile niranjan in anger burns devi home and captures them.
Sushim lays a trap for ashok and requests his father to annoounce wrestling match, ashok reaches there and defeats sushim, on other hand even dharma gets to know this , bindhusar seeing her there forgets everything and reunite with her. But ashok refuses to join them. Jaagannath kidnaps kwk but she escapes from there with help of bela.
at last ashok kwk meets but both plays hide and seek , ashok because he don't want distraction and kwk she wants him acknowledge her. On their journey ashok listen devi screams and frees her from niranjan with kwk help. Devi on other hand gets to know about ashok and kwk and promises to reunite them, meanwhile jagannath thinks kwk s dead. Ashok ll get to know about kondana who's acting against magadh, and captures some of her people and takes them to pataliputra.
Ashok settles in palace, meanwhile devi and kwk reaches to magadh, ashok was given responsibility of capturing kondana.
ashok on other hand kills sushim guru and weakens him.
Bindhusar declares swayam vadhu competition for his sons, inviting princess from all over. Even kwk joins competition disguising herself as padmavathi, devi also comes there to help her friends. But ashok ignores her and flirts with anadini much to kwk displeasure, on other hand even kwk flirts with sushim which backfires her badly, as sushim constantly start troubling her. On other hand charu choses chanda for sushim.
Seeing all this devi confronts ashok on which he tells her helplessness, but devi consoles him saying he's a man that everyone wants not a curse which he thinks himself.but after so many attempts of kwk ashok accepts her when she threatens him to herself, dharma and devi and vitt helps in their reunion. But same day nayak loses his life by protecting royal Family which was implanted by sushim and charu.
Ashok presents niranjan in front of court and tricks him to accept about kondana, but he doesn't reveal name, kondana s none other than helena who was plotting with help of siamak.ashok gets to know about Helen from niranjan but none believes him.
Here we see lassandra who's greek queen once but after her husband death she submit herself infront everyone to avenge her husband death. She proposes ashok to help him finding helena in turn she wants him to kill Greek king, on which ashok agrees.She starts manipulating siamak and sushim.
At last by tricking Helen ashok presents her infront of everyone, siamak in fear of getting caught kills her with his own hands.
After knowing about kwk and ashok dharma convinces him to accept their marriage, on which ashok invites kwk parents who gets happy seeing her alive, infront of everyone ashok and sushim engaged with kwk and chanda
But jagannath only pretends and stole royal treasury from sushim and siamak, ashok finds out this and recovers back. But jagannath still don't agrree for marriage. Atlast bindhusar ll get to know whole truth from dharma and promises to help ashok in his mission after marriage.
On this jagannath puts condition to bindhusar asking magadh inturn, devi meanwhile goes to Baba , he tells her this marriage 'll bring destruction so it should be stopped, but she refuses to believe him and comes from there. Dharma 'll get to know about this and goes to meet him, he tells her same and says her she herself breaks this marriage once she gets a girl who brings peace and happiness.
Dharma gets angry and leaves from there, but on her astonishment bindhu accepts jagannath proposal ,, on this she starts believing baba words. She sees devi and decides her as ashok bride, meanwhile rebels captures ujjain dharma goes to meet them and proposes leader to fight. With ashok, ashok defeats in dual.
On the day of marriage dharma request devi to agree for marriage, but She inturn takes poison, but dharma rescues her, sushim gets married, jjagannath tells vitt about deal, vitt stops the marriage and. Tels him about deal, to which ashok gets enraged and cancel marriage. Jaggu starts insulting dharma to which ashok stabs him, to which kwk slaps him and says him no girl with right mind marries person like him, ashok asks devi hand and marries devi in front of everyone.
Kwk gets shocked and leaves from there in anger, on other side ashok accepts devi , inturn devi asks to meet kwk one last time. But kwk in fit of anger insults devi but ashok comes and support her.
Kwk leaves to kaling, sushim and siamak kills dharma making it natural one, ashok gets heart broken and mourns over her for days, devi manages to come over the grief and inspires him. Meanwhile sushim and siamak manages to escape.
Ashok gets doubt seeing diamond on his mother hand and enquires about it and get to know reasons behind his mother death, meanwhile siamak captures taxilia killing bhamini. Ashok goes to taxilia even sushim reaches there With khalllatak, who gets captured by siamak, ashok fights with greeks , and gets injured But kwk reaches there to help him. Ashok gets conscious and goes to battle field and kills siamak, lassandra kills Greek king, and promises to set Gud relationship between India and Greek in future.sushim gets to know identity of siimak and thought to use this.
Meanwhile devi reaches there and meets ashok expresses her concern, she tells him about her meeting with kwk, and ashok sets to search for kwk, meanwhile jaggu throws kwk in water saying her she's black mark in their family and thought to blame ashok for this.
Ashok saves her , he with help of devi takes her to monks who treats kwk, but asks them to give proper treatment soon, they takes her to pataliputra, but sushim reaches there and tells bindhu about siamak who gets heart attack listening this, charu uses her black magic , jagannath tells in front everyone ashok killed kwk to which ashok denies, but bindhusar who's under black magic influence declares sushim as heir and ashok death penalty.
Sushim captures devi and vitt, and tries to kill kwk but kwk who got conscious before stabbing by charu places her there, sushim mistaking her to kwk kills his own mother.
Meanwhile ashok with help of RG escapes sushim trap, and kwk Also comes there and says entire truth, soldiers captures jagannath and sushim, sushim gets to know about his mother and cries over the fact that he killed her.ashok presents him infront of bindhusar who was dead already.
Sushim Seeing this takes things on his hands and orders soldiers to capture them, because bindhusar already announced him to be heir, but ashok meanwhile with help of RG kills ashok.,and gets crowned as king. Devi thought to leave ashok for his gud but ashok stops her, kwk goes to kaling to take care of her kingdom for sometime, meanwhile mahendra and saghamitra borns, ashok declares war against kaling , kwk as a true queen fights against ashok, but ashok defeats her , ashok after seeing so many deaths feels guilty and takes up Buddhism and transforms into dharma ashok, people father who was immortal in history.
Edited by .Subha. - 7 years ago
| Year | Award Name | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Indian Telly Award | Best Child Actor (Siddhart Nigam) | Won[47] |
| Best Historical/Mythological Series | Nominated[48] | ||
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Drama) (Sameer Dharmadhikari) | Nominated[48] | ||
| Best Acctress in a Supporting Role (Drama) (Pallavi Subhash) | Nominated[48] | ||
| Zee Gold Awards | Best Historical show | Won[49] | |
| Best Actor (Debut) (Siddhart Nigam) | Won | ||
| Television Style Award | Most Stylish Debut Siddharth Nigam | Won[50] | |
| BIG Star Entertainment Awards | Most Entertaining Television Actor (Female) (Pallavi Subhash) | Nominated | |
| Most Entertaining Television Actor (Male (Siddhart Nigam) | Nominated | ||
| Most Entertaining Television Fiction Show | Nominated | ||
| 2016 | Golden Petal Awards | Best Parivaar (Contilow Entertainment) | Won[51] |
| Favourite Child Actor (Siddharth Nigam) | Won | ||
| Favourite Child Actress (Reem Sameer Saikh) | Nominated[52] | ||
| Rising Debut Male (Siddhart Nigam) | Nominated | ||
| Best Show | Nominated | ||
| Zee Gold Awards | Best Supporting Actor (Male) (Sameer Dharmadhikari) | Nominated[53] | |
| Best Supporting Actor (Female) (Pallavi Subhash) | Nominated | ||
| Best Actor In A Negative Role (Female) (Prinal Oberoi) | Nominated |
The Times of India praised Ashok Banker's reconstruction filled historical gaps and stated that they provide "interesting fictional turns" for the show.[54]
Bollywood Life reviewer, Letty Mariam Abraham, gave the show 3 out of 5 stars; praising the sets, visual effects and production value of the show. She further heaped praise on child prodigy Siddharth Nigam as "undoubtedly a brilliant actor"; stating that "his agile body makes him the perfect actor for the role." Abraham gave her final verdict as "the show looks promising but has a lot of scope for improvement. I'd recommend that people watch this historical drama for Siddharth Nigam and the special effects of the show."[55]
India.com reviewer, Prathamesh Jadhav, stated "going by the opening episode we must confess that this elaborate drama looks rather promising with its interesting tale." He further stated, "What we liked though is the visuals and the diligence that has been put in by the special effects and VFX team. The work is seriously commendable." He gave his final verdict as "going by what we have seen [in] it one must admit that the show looks promising with its actors, its sets and the details that have gone into making a tele-series of this nature."[56]
Edited by .Subha. - 7 years agoWhy I started watching this show?
I had heard there was a show about Ashoka that was airing soon after the StarBharat days were over. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention and missed the beginning episodes (maybe a month or two in?)
What got me addicted to the show?
Manoj Ji as Chanakya, Pallavi as Dharma, and Sid as Ashok. Those three tied with the fantastic story writing, the musical backgrounds, the character interactions, and the superb acting of the entire cast got me addicted.
What I liked the most in the show?
Pallavi / Dharma (but most of you already know that). I think the acting was tremendous and one of the finest. The younger actors really held their own throughout the show and I never felt, for even a split second, that these young people are being carried by the elder, more experienced actors. For example, Manoj-Ji's chemistry with Sid was crazy rich and perfect. Or Sumedh's acting with Prinal - again, great chemistry.
What I didn't like in the show?
The overall need to blacken other characters, simply to make Ashok that much more white. This show slowly lost the variation in characters it had created and it ultimately became an Ashok-bashing ceremony. Tie that in with the post-leap need to focus solely on the romance of Ashok's life and the continuous fallback onto black magic, and one slowly lost interest. Also, I would add that Dharma's death in that particular way was very disappointing.
My favorite moments of the show.
Too many. I'll sum it up pretty easily -
All Dharma scenes (even the most cringe worthy ones), Ashok + Chanakya scenes, Ashok + Sushim scenes, Devi scenes (in Ujjain), any war scenes.
My favorite characters of the show.
Dharma / Subhadrangi. Ashok, Sushim, Chanakya, Drupad, Vitt, Devi, Garud ... ehh ... all of them really. They all made the show what it was together ... yes ...
My message to the cast and crew of CAS.
Cast / Director / Producer / Camera people / Music people -
You guys did a splendid job and made CAS superb, a true hit and wonder. Collectively, this is one of the best shows I have seen on Indian television (though, to be fair - I don't watch a lot of Indian serials). I had a great time watching CAS and loved hanging out and discussing episodes with people on an internet forum, so thank you for that.
