 The nuances of these different theories are closely related to the markedly different interests of the schools within which they developed. Sanskrit poetics was interested in the poetic dimensions of meaning. Grammarians were interested in language and cognition, but had little interest in ontological categories per se, except as conceptual structures revealed by the usage of words. For them words and meanings had to be explained irrespective of one’s metaphysical views. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas were primarily into logic, epistemology, and ontology, and argued that a valid sentence was a true picture of a state of reality. The foremost goal of Mīmāṃsā was to interpret and defend the Vedic scriptures. Thus, meaning for Mīmāṃsā had to be eternal, uncreated, and unrelated to the intention of a person, because its word par excellence, the Vedic scripture, was eternal, uncreated, and beyond the authorship of a divine or human person. The scriptural word was there to instruct people on how to perform proper ritual and moral duties, but there was no intention behind it. The Buddhists, on the other hand, aimed at weaning people away from all attachment to the world, and hence at showing the emptiness of everything, including language. They were more interested in demonstrating how language fails to portray reality, than in explaining how it works. The theories of meaning were thus a significant part of the total agenda of each school and need to be understood in their specific context.