Vācaspati Miśra (900–980 CE) was an Indian philosopher who founded one of the main Advaita Vedanta schools, the Bhāmatī school (named after his commentary on Śankara's Brahma-sūtra-bhāṣya), and whose work was an important forerunner of the Navya-Nyāya system of thought.

Vācaspati was a Maithili Brahmin who lived near the frontier between India and Nepal (what is now Vachaspati Nagar (Andhra Thardhi), Madhubani). The details of his life have been lost, though he is said to have named one of his works after his wife, Bhāmatī. He wrote commentaries on the main works of all the major Hindu schools of thought at the time, as well as one non-commentary, Tattvabindu.

In Tattvabindu, Vācaspati examines four competing theories of linguistic meaning:

After examining each of these theories, Vācaspati presents his own theory, abhihitānvayavāda, according to which understanding of the meaning of a whole sentence is reached by inferring it, in a separate act of lakṣanā or implication, from the individual meanings of the constituent words.