Most classical Indian thinkers (some Buddhists being an important exception, see section 4.1) understand word meaning, or padārtha, to refer to objects in the world, and to do so directly. For these thinkers—Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā—the referential function is primary. However, despite broad agreement about the basic referential function of words, they disagree about what its objects are. One such dispute, which has implications for the primary/secondary distinction, is over the relationship between words and universals. Kumārila argues that the primary referent of words is a universal. Kumārila’s reasoning is that, without words denoting the universal property belonging to, for example, all cows, there would not be a permanent (nitya) relationship between word and referent. For if “cow” means a specific cow, Bessie, when Bessie goes out of existence, the word lacks denotation (ŚV). Further, the Vedic injunction, “A cow is to be tied up,” can be followed in numerous rituals—but if a specific cow were intended, it could be followed only once. (This argument is found in early Grammatical thought as well, see below.) Still, despite the fact that all Mīmāṃsakas accept the requirement of fixity of word and referent, they do not all accept the universal-denotation view. Some agree with another philosopher, roughly contemporaneous with Kumārila, Prabhākara (his followers are known as “Prābhākaras,” with the first long “ā” equivalent to the English “-an” as in “Fregean”). They reject the universal-denotation view in connection with their view of sentence meaning (see sections 4.3 and 5.1).