In the Milinda Panha, King Milinda asks the monk Nagasena to discuss with him. In the translation by T.W. Rhys Davids, Nagasena answers: “If your Majesty will discuss as a scholar, well, but if you will discuss as a king, no.”
When scholars talk a matter over, he explains, “there is a winding up, an unravelling.” When a king advances a point and someone differs from him, the king “is apt to fine him.”