''Charumitra'' is a Hindi language historical play in one act by Ram Kumar Verma (b. 1905); a well known Hindi poet, playwright, critic, and historian. Sources give conflicting accounts to its date, with some sources giving the year as 1941 and others as 1942. Widely recognized as a masterpiece of modern

Hindi theatre Hindi theatre is theatre performed in the Hindi language, including dialects such as Braj Bhasha, Khari Boli and Hindustani. Hindi theatre is produced mainly in North India, and some parts of West India and Central India, which include Mumbai a ...

, an excerpt from the play was included in ''Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology: Plays and prose'' (1992). Ram Kumar Verma adapted the work into the English language, organizing the play in three acts and publishing it in 1957. The English translation of the play was acquired by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

in 1978. The play is titled after the fictional character of Charumitra who is a maid servant to the historical figure of

Tishyaraksha Tishyarakshita (Pali: ''Tissarakkhā'', Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South As ...

, the last wife of the third Mauryan emperor

Ashoka Ashoka, also known as Asoka or Aśoka ( ; , ; – 232 BCE), and popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was List of Mauryan emperors, Emperor of Magadha from until #Death, his death in 232 BCE, and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynast ...

(emperor of

Magadha Magadha was a region and kingdom in ancient India, based in the eastern Ganges Plain. It was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas during the Second Urbanization period. The region was ruled by several dynasties, which overshadowed, conquered, and ...

). The play takes place in the thirteenth year of Ashoka's reign in the 3rd century BCE with Charumitra acting as a foil to the historical figures at the center of the play.

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