 The modern distinction of “sense” versus “reference” is somewhat blurred in the Sanskrit discussions of the notion of meaning. The question Indian philosophers seem to raise is “what does a word communicate?” They were also interested in detecting if there was some sort of sequence in which different aspects of layers of meaning were communicated. Generally, the notion of meaning is further stratified into three or four types. First there is the primary meaning, something that is directly and immediately communicated by a word. If the primary meaning is inappropriate in a given context, then one moves to a secondary meaning, an extension of the primary meaning. Beyond this is the suggested meaning, which may or may not be the same as the meaning intended by the speaker.