Which Jataka story describes the plight of the subjects of a wicked king: these included elderly women and men, cultivators, herders, village boys, and even animals?

Gandantindu Jataka

The correct answer is Option (3) → Gandantindu Jataka

"What did subjects think about their rulers? Obviously, inscriptions do not provide all the answers. In fact, ordinary people rarely left accounts of their thoughts and experiences. Nevertheless, historians have tried to solve this problem by examining stories contained in anthologies such as the Jatakas and the Panchatantra. Many of these stories probably originated as popular oral tales that were later committed to writing. The Jatakas were written in Pali around the middle of the first millennium CE. One story known as the Gandatindu Jataka describes the plight of the subjects of a wicked king; these included elderly women and men, cultivators, herders, village boys and even animals. When the king went in disguise to find out what his subjects thought about him, each one of them cursed him for their miseries, complaining that they were attacked by robbers at night and by tax collectors during the day. To escape from this situation, people abandoned their village and went to live in the forest. As this story indicates, the relationship between a king and his subjects, especially the rural population, could often be strained – kings frequently tried to fill their coffers by demanding high taxes, and peasants particularly found such demands oppressive. Escaping into the forest remained an option, as reflected in the Jataka story. Meanwhile, other strategies aimed at increasing production to meet growing demand for taxes also came to be adopted."