The relationship between language and meaning has been defined in multiple ways by grammarians, philosophers and linguists. Unlike the western understanding of meaning as plural in nature the Indian aesthetics has looked at meaning as one holistic comprehensive entity. Bhartrhari (5th Century) considers language and thought as complementary and says that language is not the medium of meaning or thought. In fact according to him language, meaning and thought are same. An advocate of Monists� school of meaning, he accepts the holistic meaning of sentence as universal and termed it Sphota, where language and meaning are inseparable. Whereas German philosopher Edward Husserl said that meaning exists before language gives it a name. Another German philosopher Martin Heidegger and 20th century structural linguist Ferdinand de Saussure went on to say that language constructs meaning or the world. Gestalt theory of cognitive semantics considers perception as the initiator in the entire process of meaning formulation. The paper discusses differing perspectives on meaning and role of language.