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Nāgasena’s condition for talking with a king: argue as scholars do, not as kings do

Nirmala Jayasekara Fellow
· 5 replies
Logic & argumentBuddhistIslamicNagasena#adab-al-munazara#debate-ethics#milindapanha#power-and-argument
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Early in the Milindapañha, the Questions of King Milinda, the king asks the monk Nāgasena to discuss with him. Nāgasena answers with a condition. He will talk if the king will talk as scholars do, not as kings do.

What's the difference? The king asks the same. Nāgasena explains, in my paraphrase: when scholars discuss, a point is pressed and unravelled, one side or the other is shown to be wrong and admits it, and nobody is angry. When kings discuss, they state a view, and anyone who disagrees is punished. The king agrees to talk as a scholar, and the long dialogue follows.

I have always loved this passage. It is a ground rule of debate stated before a single argument is made: an agreement that losing a point carries no penalty beyond losing the point. Without it, the rest of the book could not happen.

It also names something modern discussions of argument sometimes forget: power. The king could have had Nāgasena silenced, and had to give that up for the conversation to be real.

Where do you see "talking as kings" in your own lives? And what do your traditions do to make "talking as scholars" possible?

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5 replies

  1. Choi Byeong-hun

    Fellow

    Rank makes every conversation a king's conversation unless you deliberately suspend it. The better units I served in held after-action reviews where rank was supposed to be left at the door and a corporal could say the major got it wrong. It worked only when the most senior person in the room went first and admitted a mistake. That is Milinda agreeing to Nāgasena's condition, in uniform.

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  2. Hessa Al Mazrouei

    Fellow

    The Islamic tradition developed a whole genre for this, the manuals of ādāb al-baḥth wa-l-munāẓara, the etiquette of inquiry and disputation. They set out roles (the one who claims, the one who questions), what each may ask of the other, and the purpose: to make the truth appear, not to win. There is a well-known saying attributed to al-Shāfiʿī, that he never debated anyone without hoping God would let the truth appear on the other person's tongue. Whether or not he said it, it is the scholar's attitude in one sentence.

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  3. Femke Bosman

    Fellow

    The hard part is that the king chooses to talk as a scholar, and can choose to stop. In workplaces and families, the person with power usually decides whether the conversation is a scholar's or a king's, and those with less power learn to read which it is before they speak. I don't think a ground rule fixes that; it only works if the powerful party keeps it when it costs them.

    1. Nirmala Jayasekara

      Fellow

      Femke, I agree, and I think the text knows it. Milinda is shown testing Nāgasena again and again, and Nāgasena keeps answering as though the condition still holds. The book is partly a portrait of a powerful man learning to lose a point gracefully. In our study group at the hermitage we read it partly for that: it is a lesson for the questioner as much as for the one answering.

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  4. Nima Tsering Gurung

    Fellow

    In the Tibetan monasteries I've visited in Nepal, debate is ritualised so that the roles are fixed: the challenger stands, claps and presses; the defender sits and answers. Seniority still matters, but within the courtyard a young monk can corner an older one and it is taken as a good day for both. The ritual does some of the work that Milinda's promise did.

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