Devakshara Charita

{{short description|1884 Bhojpuri Play by Ramdatta Shukla}}

{{infobox play

| name = Devakshara Charita

| writer = Ramdatta Shukla

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| premiere = 1884

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| subject = Supremacy of Devanagari over Persian

| genre = Theatre

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}}

Devakshara Charita or Devakshar Charitra (Bhojpuri: {{Script|Kthi| 𑂠𑂵𑂫𑂰𑂍𑂹𑂭𑂩 𑂒𑂩𑂱𑂞}} IAST: Devākṣarcarita; Transl.: The Character of the Divine Alphabet) is a Bhojpuri play by Ramdatta Shukla which was written in 1884,{{Cite book|last=Grierson|first=G. A.|title=Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. V, Part II|publisher=|year=1903|isbn=|location=|pages=}} which is also considered as first published drama of Bhojpuri.{{Cite book|last=Jain|first=Dinesh|title=The Indo-Aryan Languages|date=26 July 2007|publisher=|isbn=978-1135797119|location=|pages=519}} This play was written to emphasize the supremacy of the Devanagari script and to highlight the drawbacks of Urdu script.{{Cite book|last=|first=|title=Bihar District Gazetteers: Shahabad|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=130}}{{Cite book|title=The Earliest Stage of Language Planning: The "first Congress" Phenomenon|publisher=|year=1993|isbn=3110135302|location=|pages=119|last1=Fishman|first1=Joshua A.}} It was written and published in 1884 from lite press, Varanasi.{{cn|date=August 2021}}