 Vātsyāyana and company discuss word meaning in terms of possible referents (Nyāya-sūtra 2.2.59–69), (i) the individual, for example, ‘cow’ used for a particular cow, (ii) the universal, cowhood, what all cows have in common, and (iii) “shape,” ākṛti, as with a cow-shaped pastry. The settled view is that all three are generally meant in a single usage, with predominance varying with context. Against this background, Vācaspati (1979) explores five views of sentential meaning including both (a) the “theory of the connection of the referents,” the radically, incrementally referentialist view espoused by Bhāṭṭas and Naiyāyikas, abhihitânvaya-vāda, and (b) the “theory of reference of the connected,” “holistic reference,” the Prābhākara view of reference as occurring at the level of the sentence, anvītâbhidhāna-vāda. In his Nyāya-sūtra work (1996), Vācaspati imports the Bhāṭṭa view, according to which sentence meaning is derivative from the reference of individual words and other semantic elements taken together, with the overall connection, anvaya, provided by the fact (if the statement is true) of the words’ referents being in relation, the “truth-maker.” Later Naiyāyikas such as Gaṅgeśa follow him, although, to repeat, Gaṅgeśa often talks about sentential unity presupposing the Prābhākara view that the component words do not individually have referential power but only as connected grammatically, with a complex object or fact as that which is referred to by the unifying sentence.