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 and that in books intended for children the rules of sandhi should be relaxed in all cases in which such relaxation is permissible. In ordinary composition the conference advocated the existing rules’.

128. As against the opinion of Pandits who initiated the system of violation of rules of grammar more than fifty years ago as an unavoidable evil in the interests of school children, and of the Pandits Conference, held two years back, Mr. K.V. Lakshmana Row expressed in his memorandum a view that a breach of the rules of sandhi was in accordance with literary tradition. He says, “I have to point out that a misconception has long existed among a number of Telugu Pandits who have not been evidently acquainted with the tradition of Sanskrit grammar. These pandits seem to be of opinion that sandhi is everywhere and in all cases obligatory. This is a mistaken notion. Sanskrit grammarians give the following rule for the coalescence of contiguous sounds in language. 30:gs c3’g c3’g c3’g ss

“This means that sandhi (o) is obligatory in a single word, between a verbal root and its prefix and in a samasa (°) and that apart from these it is optional in prose.

“This rule must hold good equally in Telugu. Prakrit grammars end with a sutra lo Traditional Telugu grammar considers itself a kind of Prakrit grammar (Vide Appa Kavee yam 1st Aswasam) and therefore Telugu grammarians have generally borrowed supplemental rules from Sanskrit and Prakrit grammars.

“Thus the rule says that except in the above three cases, the laws of sandhi may be left to be optional so far as prose-writing is concerned. This option has proved to be of considerable value in the development of modern Telugu prose. The modern prose writer in Telugu is at perfect liberty to break sandhi in the middle