 Mīmāṃsā, whose leaders Kumārila and Prabhākara are followed by many Vedāntins and by some Nyāya philosophers, comes to the debate about testimony with an axe to grind, namely, to defend Vedic authority. The words of the Veda are not spoken by anyone originally. Speakers are subject to error but not the Veda, whose verses are not originally composed (apauruṣeya). Vedāntic theists, in the main, along with almost all Nyāya philosophers, take the position that like all sentences, those of the Veda should be understood as spoken (or composed, etc.) by someone with the intention to communicate. Thus the Lord, īśvara, is the author of the Veda (the best or only candidate, according to Udayana, eleventh century, Nyāya-kusumāñjalī). Mīmāṃsā, however, is atheistic, viewing the Veda as primordial, resounding in the ether that surrounds the universe, heard and memorized by great rishis in their pellucid consciousness (not cluttered by ordinary thought). Thus according to Mīmāṃsā, sentences can be meaningful without having a speaker with an intention to communicate. Vedāntin and Nyāya theists generalize from the everyday to assume that, no, statements and sentences require a speaker, a composer, who, in the case of S’s knowledge passing to H, must be an āpta expert, i.e., someone who knows the truth and wants to tell it without a desire to deceive. The Lord is this speaker in the case of the Veda, it is inferred by some.