107. Under missionary influence, no doubt, Telugu School books were once written in the polite spoken dialect, and spoken forms entered largely into the translations of the Bible.
108. But Elementary Education came under the influence of the pandit and school-books were written in the poetic dialect. Even the pandit realised in time, that a study of the poetic dialect was beyond the capacity of elementary school boys, and that it was an unsuitable medium of instruction in elementary schools. He, there fore, sought to simplify it by deliberately violating some of the rules of its grammar, chiefly those bearing on sandhi. In 1856 The Upayukta Grandhakarana Sabha of Madras i.e., the Textbook Committee of the day which wrote or published school books appended a notice to the 31 edition of an “outlines of geography” of which the following is a translation.
“The Upayukta Grandhakarana Sabha (society for the writing of useful books) of Madras, wrote this book in the cyclic year Saumya corresponding to 1849 A.D. They made a new departure in this edition. In order to secure general intelligibility, they discarded difficult sandhis and observed only such sandhis as are in common use, though such a process involved violation of grammar. They have made the style very easy and brought out this revised edition. In this task they were assisted by V. Satagopacharyulu and some pandits” (Vide page 5).
109. This step was a turning point in the history of Telugu. It was unfortunate that U.G.K. Sabha should have started the fallacy that the discordance of sandhi was an advantage. To a student who could understand the obsolete words and archaic forms of the literary dialect, sandhi is not likely to present difficulties. The object with which the U.G.K. Sabha violated sandhi was soon forgotten and breach of sandhi became a fashion and an end in itself.
