Prabhakar Mishra by upholding a unique position on sentence-meaning, and by consciously opting for the golden mean which repudiates both the earlier doctrines (Abhitānvyavāda and Akhandabhayanuvāda), prescribed that "sentence meaning is determined by the 'related' meanings of the words which compose the sentence" (Siderits, 1985,135). This doctrine is named as anvitābhidhānavāda, and popularized as 'related designation' theory (Siderits, 1985, 134).

Prabhakar Mishra summarily rejected the grammarians' standpoint on sentence-meaning by stating that sentence-meaning is not an impartite whole, on the one hand, and repudiated the Naiyāyikas and Bhatta Mimānsikas views by expressing that the individual words have no meaning in isolation of a sentence, on the other hand. Having rebuked that he uniquely represented his views on sentence-meaning, i.e., "a word has meaning only within the context of a sentence. Thus, the semantic contribution of a given word to a sentence in which it occurs must consist of a contextually determined meaning" (Siderits, 1985, 135). A word may not convey the same meaning in all contexts. Thus, 'context' becomes the primary consideration to determine the meaning of a sentence. Again, we as 'meaning- seekers' have to see the relation among the constituent words of a sentence which construct the sentence as a whole. If you consider the painting analogy, we see the painting as an integral whole, but we cannot deny the fact that this integral nature is palpable by dint of the amalgam of colour patches, and the inalienable relation between a patch and with its neighboring patches. From these analyses, it is asserted that meaning of a sentence is derived from its contextual use. It implies, meaning becomes the psychological fact. Against this background, Bhartŗhari develops a doctrine known as 'sphotavāda', that is of our present concern for discussion.