 The doctrine of apoha and Ganeri’s hybrid version may well be ingenious, but it is a far cry from what would satisfy the Hindu realist. According to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, universals exist in this very world of ours. We do not need to construct concepts from sensory content, rather universals are part and parcel of this sensory content. Chadha (2014, 289) explains that according to Nyāya, for a universal to exist all that is required is that it be exemplified; in a Quinean twist – to be is to be exemplified. There is no further requirement that it exist independently as an abstract entity or in Plato’s heaven; universals are given directly in perception insofar as their loci are perceived. Taber (2017) develops the Mīmāṃsa views about how universals are cognised. In the first verse of his Ākṛtivāda, the Kumarila explains what is at stake for the Mīmāṃsakas in the debate about universals. Unlike the Naiyāyikas, the Mīmāṃsa philosophers are not motivated merely by epistemological requirements, their main aim is to defend the eternality of the Vedas. This requires that the language, and in turn the words and their meanings are eternal. Therefore, the meaning of a word cannot be a particular which is perishable. It must be a universal that exists eternally. But like the Naiyāyikas, the Mīmāṃsa philosophers believe that universals are not merely inferred, but are directly perceived. Kumarila’s argument for the perceptibilty of universals s developed in response to the Buddhist doctrine of apoha. To the Buddhist who says that we cannot perceive universals distinct from particulars, because perception can only cognise particulars. Kumarila replies by offering example. When we perceive a man at a distance and wonder whether he is a Brahmin or some other kind of man, we do so because we perceive the universal humanity directly. This would be possibble if at least some universals were not directly given in perception.