 Dharmakīrti defines conventional truth, in his [PVK], as dharma which is “conventionally existent” and he identifies conventional truth with the “universal”  (sāmānya-lakṣaṇa)[7]  just as he identifies ultimate truth with unique particular (Tshad ma ce 118b). When a Sautrāntika philosopher describes a certain entity as a universal, he means a conceptual entity not apprehended by virtue of its own being. He means a general property that is conceptually constructed, appearing to be something common amongst all items in a certain class of objects. Unlike Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika view where universals are regarded as objectively real and eternal entities inhering in substances, qualities and particulars, universals, for the Sautrāntika are pure conceptual constructs. Sautrāntika holds the view known as nominalism or conceptualism—the view that denies universals any independent extramental objective reality existing on their own apart from being mentally constructed.