Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t3.37

c4.t3.37

The people realize that the king who should protect them is himself a thief and determine to kill him, 'that he may not in future go on plundering any more.' With sticks and hammers they go out and beat the king and the purohita till they are dead. The Brāhmaṇa youth is then proclaimed king. Elsewhere³ the people are seen putting the priest to death and then hurrying with sticks and stones to kill the tyrant king himself in a fit of frenzied glee. It is only with 'divine' intervention that the king's life is spared. He is driven out of the city and thrown into an outcaste settlement. Similarly when the people of a country find that their king has developed cannibalistic tastes they at once stir in revolt. They approach the commander-in-chief and ask, "What do you propose to do? How will you proceed now? You have caught the man-eating rogue? If he does not give it up, have him expelled from his kingdom." Now they would not suffer the king to say a word. They expel him.⁴ Last, but not the least, we have an instance of a king having been slain under similar circumstances. The king is lustful, comes across a lovely maiden—Sujātā—the wife of a peaceful villager, and desires to catch hold of her. But on coming to know that the woman is not unmarried, and therefore not easy to get at, he indulges in a savage misuse of his royal power, has the husband arrested on a false charge of theft, and sentences him to capital punishment. Sakka, 'the people's god' comes to their rescue. He drags the king to the place of execution. When the servants lift the axe and chop off a head—it is the king's head. The Bodhisatta is consecrated king amidst the loud approval of the ministers, the Brāhmaṇas, the gahapatis and others.⁵