PRODUCING A VERY BIG BOOK:
THE MAKING OF THE TELUGU ENCYCLOPAEDIA.
NO PART OF THIS WORK SHALL BE USED WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
A. Monish Shanmukh Kasyap.
Abstract:-
Encyclopaedias in colonial and pre globalised world possessed very high value, as they are the chief providers of knowledge for the masses. Having a collection of encyclopaedia set is a symbol of status as literate and knowledgeable. The study of the paper is to understand how the encyclopaedias emerged, conditions prevalent to emerge and the efforts to compile them. This paper focusses how the encyclopaedias were made and it looks at people who visioned for an encyclopaedia in Telugu. The efforts to compile one big book is the subject of the paper, and their growth in colonial and independent India’s contexts is the main emphasis.
Keywords :- Encyclopaedia, Telugu, Telugu Bhasha Samiti, Komarraju Lakshmana Rao, Vignana Sarwaswamu.
Introduction:-
In the first edition of Andhra Patrika Weekly magazine in 1910, Komarraju Lakshmana Rao had published the translation of Aurangazeb’s letter to his teacher Mullah Saleh, critically analysing the state of the education system. In the translated letter, Aurangzeb talks about the narrowness of education he studied. He criticises that his teacher wasted many years of his childhood teaching him Arabic, which was of hardly any benefit to him. He says he was not taught anything that was benefactory or essential for a king to be known. He goes on to say," You have not taught me geography, you have not told me that countries such as Portugal, Holland, and England exist, their nature. Whether they were plains or plateaus or islands, you have never taught me any of those. You are busy eulogizing the Indian emperor and neglecting the histories, polities and cultures of the countries other than India. Without studying history, how would someone know how great kingdoms formed and declined? Have you felt this was unnecessary for me? Rather than teaching me what was necessary, you’ve taught me philosophy, words tough to pronounce, what is the benefit of that to me as an emperor.
This letter and translation of this letter, even though they were divided by a timeframe of two centuries, were relevant even at the beginning of the twentieth century. Indian knowledge outside their country is very minimal, and the nationalists have thought to educating their countrymen. To provide such knowledge, they felt encyclopaedias were necessary. In the growing nationalist environment, it was taken with the utmost importance and the author of the earlier translated piece, Komarraju Lakshmana Rao began to work on an Encyclopaedia in Telugu along the lines of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, before any other Dravidian language. Before Lakshmana Rao, the encyclopaedia in Bengali is a noteworthy effort in Indian languages, authored by Nagendra Nath Basu, that took two decades for publication. The making of the encyclopaedia in Telugu can be classified as the incipient phase and advanced phase. The incipient phase discusses about the early efforts in producing encyclopaedias and the encyclopaedia produced before Indian Independence 1947, and the advanced phase after 1947 to the contemporary times.
The Incipient Phase :-
Even before the encyclopaedia emerged in an Indian context, Chadalawada Seetarama Sastry’s Bala Siksha was published in 1832 in 72 pages in demy octavo size and acted as a children’s encyclopaedia. Later, many versions of it emerged. In 1865, Bala Siksha became Pedda Bala Siksha as an enlarged version and the next significant Pedda Bala Siksha was in 1932, by famous publishers Vavilla and sons. In between these years, Pedda Bala Siksha grew in its size, was published by various publishers and got many Guzili editions too. And this children’s encyclopaedia was taught in schools and was part of the school curriculum also.
The earliest attempt known to produce an encyclopaedia is traced to Komarraju Venkata Lakshmana Rao. Mr. Rao, who was instrumental in establishing Vignana Chandrika Mandali and Sri Krishnadevaraya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam started to compile an Encyclopaedia. He acted as chief editor and compiler of the encyclopaedia which he called Andhra Vignana Sarwaswamu, The Telugu Encyclopaedia, A dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature, History and General Information.
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| First page of Andhra Vignana Sarwaswamu |
Not just was he the chief compiler, he authored many topics in the encyclopaedia and took help from many authors and subject experts too. He did not want the encyclopaedia be a mere translation. Lakshmana Rao was a frequent visitor to the Connemara library in Madras, consulting many works from the start of the day to its closing time. Authors such as Gadicharla Hari Sarvottama Rao, Achanta Lakshmipathi, Rayaprolu Subba Rao, Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao, Mallampalli Somasekhara Sharma, Mamidipudi Venkata Rangayya, Manavalli Ramakrishna Kavi and Vedam Venkata Raya Sastri have acted as authors to this Encyclopaedia. Lakshmana Rao established The Telugu Encyclopaedia office in Thambu Chetty Street, Madras. It was printed at Peerless printers and India Printing Works and the cover was printed at Andhra Patrika Press, Madras and has published three editions starting from the Telugu alphabet ‘A’. The three editions lasted over 2000 pages and had pictures printed along, those three editions were vast and had only words from the alphabet “A”. The Encyclopaedia in its three editions lasted from words à to Ahri. This explains the magnitude of the encyclopaedia Lakshmana Rao was compiling. He published these Encyclopaedias in monthly magazines in 1913 July until 1915 and later compiled them into three volumes and published them in 1915, 1916 and 1917. With the death of Lakshmana Rao, the encyclopaedia project came to a stall. Desoddharaka Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao, the original publisher of this encyclopaedia and the owner of the renowned newspaper Andhra Patrika, republished the first two volumes and eventually his death in 1934 ended the magnanimous Andhra Vignana Sarwaswam Project. It was the name Vignana Sarwaswam, the name given by Lakshmana Rao is still used to describe encyclopaedias in Telugu.
The next effort to produce an encyclopaedia was by Kandukuri Bala Surya Prasada Rao, who styled himself as Prasada Bhupaludu in the work, the Zamindar of Devdi, Urlam, in the Srikakulam district, which was a successful one. The Zamindar of Devdi, produced a seven-volume encyclopaedia from Kakinada and Rajahmundry. Prasada Bhupaludu’s Andhra Vignanamu, The Telugu Encyclopaedia lasted over 4000 pages and was compiled by one man, The Zamindar of Devdi. The Encyclopaedia was published between 1938-41, and used the colloquial tongue (Vyavaharikam) rather than the literary (Grandhikam) of the Vignana Sarwaswam. The use of colloquial got a wide appreciation at the time when the colloquial tongue movement was in its zenith.
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| Kandukuri Bala Surya Prasada Rao, Zamindar of Devdi. |
The Andhra Vignanamu is a very vast work by one man, Sir Cattamanchi Rama Linga Reddy, in its foreword, has praised the efforts of Prasada Bhupaludu for taking such a humongous task alone and said that “the imperishable beauty of its Prose is worthy”. Sir Reddy opines that “I do not mean to say that the present Encyclopaedia is at all of the standing and stature of the historic French classic. But it too is charged with the power of personality. It too is characterised by a spirit of rationalistic enquiry and humanitarian outlook. And it too possesses the grace of style in a peculiarly high measure.”[i].The only shortcomings in Prasada Bhupaludu’s work is that the choice of words is arbitrary, and he has used English words directly rather than using Telugu for scientific words, he lost a chance to create a scientific word glossary, which he might have created. In 1943, there was an Andhra centric encyclopaedia called the Andhra sarwasamu, over 600 pages. Unlike traditional encyclopaedia it addresses the Andhra as the centre of the encyclopaedia.
The Advanced Phase :-
In the Madras Presidency, a multilingual and cultural province, the next attempt to an encyclopaedia came from the other side of the line. The proposal to make an Encyclopaedia was mooted in Tamil Language under the aegis of the then education minister, T. S. Avinashalingam Chettiar, and he registered a society under the society act and named it Tamil Valarchi Kazhagam, meaning Tamil development council officially known as The Tamil Academy. Making an Encyclopaedia costs fortunes and Chettiar decided to get government funding and special treatment for a single language in the multilingual presidency would enrage flames in already brewing linguistic agitations. To settle the situation in peace, he used the good offices of the then finance minister, a polyglot, a poet and a recipient of a D. Litt. From Viswa Bharati, Dr. Bezawada Gopala Reddi[ii] for starting an encyclopaedia project in Dravidian languages and garnered his support. At the invitation of the education minister, a meeting was convened of Telugu Language enthusiasts on 15th October 1947. A consensus has appeared with the previous experience of Lakshmana Rao that this Juggernaut project can only be achieved by both government help and public subscription. With the help of both the ministers and enthusiasts, the Telugu Bhasha Samiti was established. The Samiti was headed by Gopala Reddi and Moturi Satyanarayana acted as a secretary.
The Samiti was established with the following aims: to make an encyclopaedia for Telugu Language; Promote Knowledge in Telugu Language; promote the best books and literature through awards; to conduct conferences, lectures and meetings to promote Telugu Language. With the Finance and education ministers on their side, granting permissions did not take much time.
The biggest challenge was managing such humongous costs to make an encyclopaedia was the challenge before them. An assurance was made by the Madras provincial government for a recurring grant of Rs. One lakh each for five years for both the languages, and the Union government also granted Rs. 75000 each for four years. In an era of refugee crisis and newly formed country the grants from union were mere assurances and chances to get them were very bleak. Initially, the encyclopaedia was envisioned as 12 volumes covering various subjects. It was envisioned that a budget of 15 Lakh Rupees would be required to publish the Encyclopaedia. An assurance of eight lakhs was in place and the others were expected to be met through donations and public subscription. There was a very positive response from the philanthropists and charities for supporting the cause. The Maharajah of Vizianagaram, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, Simahachalam Devasthanam committee, Maharajah of Pithapuram, Mr. V. Ramakrishna of Uyyur Sugar factory, Gogineni Venkata Subbayya and others have donated their money for the cause, and it clocked Rs. 2,50,000. By the end of 1969, the budget had grown to 20 lakh rupees and by 1975 it had grown to 25 lakh rupees. Apart from the 2.5 Lakh rupees from donations, 6,49,999.87 were received from the Composite Madras state, Andhra state and Andhra Pradesh state governments. The Ministry of education, Government of India granted 4,87,000[iii] by the end of 1975.
The making of the Encyclopaedia was kickstarted on 9th March 1948, at the University buildings in Madras University, which were given at free of cost by Sir Arcot Lakshmana Swamy Mudaliar, the then Vice chancellor of Madras University. Gidugu Venkata Sitapati was appointed as the chief compiler, subcommittees were formed and convenors were appointed to head them, reporting to the compilers and then chief compiler. Many authors and subject experts across the states participated and some were written by subject experts from abroad too. K.A. Nilakantha Sastri, Salim Ali, Bhadriraju Krishnamurthi, Rahul Sankrityayan and C.P. Ramaswami Iyer and many other Indian scholars and professors from Paris, Princeton, Ohio, New York and Cambridge have written pieces for the encyclopaedia. The earlier envisioned 12 volumes were expanded to 16 volumes and 14 volumes only being published. While many editions got reprints and were updated accordingly in the revised editions. The Samiti’s logo consisted of a Buddhist stupa and a Dharma Chakra above the stupa in Lotus and guarded by two snakes and written Telugu Bhasha Samiti inscribed in Telugu on the label and the same written in Brahmi script in the Dhrama Chakra. The Telugu encyclopaedia was ironically printed in the Hindi Prachar Sabha Press in Madras.
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| Title of Telugu Bhasha Samiti |
The Samiti adopted the book of knowledge model encyclopaedia citing the past experiences from Lakshmana Rao’s case where the words from the single alphabet ‘A’ running over 2000 pages and ending abruptly, and it was believed that it may take 30 years and more to publish seeing the volume of words in Telugu as it has many loan words from Sanskrit and its native Dravidian words, essentially it becomes and encyclopaedia of Sanskrit plus Telugu words considering the nature of Language. Also to reduce the cost of readers of buying all editions, they adopted a book of knowledge model where the encyclopaedias would be alphabetical but a volume covering a broad subject. Such as an edition on history and polity covers the alphabetical list in history and polity and similarly in Chemistry, Physics, Philosophy, Telugu Culture, Economy, Commerce, Geography, Life sciences, World literature, Agriculture, Animal husbandry and Forestry, Mathematics, Astronomy, Engineering, Social Sciences, Law and administration and Fine Arts were published in 14 volumes. The 15th volume on medicine and 16th volume comprising index never came out. The first volume started in 1954 and continued until 1979. It convened meetings for bringing scientific terms, unlike Prasada Bhupala, and created the Paribhashika Pada Suchika (Foreign terms index) with the help of Telugu akademi and brought many new words into language.
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| The Title page of Samiti's Viganana Sarwaswamu |
The Telugu Bhasha samiti was initially housed at the university buildings at University of Madras in Chennai. Then a part of it shifted its base to Andhra university, Waltair, later to Osmania University in Hyderabad. In 1985, the umbrella institution of Potti Sriramulu Telugu University absorbed Telugu Bhasha samiti, Sahitya academy and many similar organisations and established Komarraju Venkata Lakshmana Rao Vignana Sarwaswa kendram. It undertook updating of the Samiti’s encyclopaedias and reprinted them and, planned to expand the encyclopaedias to 36 volumes with an assured budget of 25 lakh per year. The university published 5 new, revised and enlarged versions and republished all the volumes. The 36 volume project did not materialise as of this day.
Conclusion:-
The new century is marked with many new changes. Computers are localised, we went to the internet and now the internet has come to us. With the advent of the internet, the encyclopaedia paved the way to digitalisation and a new Wikipedia emerged, where anyone can contribute, even in the vernaculars, but the mega project of a comprehensive Telugu encyclopaedia did not materialise. Within a century between 1915 and 2014, the Telugu language made a whole circle, and ended up where it began. The universe of encyclopaedia production started in the Chennapatnam aka Madras, went to Kakinada and Rajahmundry, then to Waltair aka Vizag for a brief period and ended up in Hyderabad, it thought. With the changing landscapes of the Telugu populace, the projects and language lie in ambiguity like in 1915. A whole circle has been completed. In 1915, its lack of information. In 2025 it is misinformation. The encyclopaedia production made a full rotation in a century.
The encyclopaedia projects are successful in making a mark for themselves, as much as that the completion of a Pedda bala siksha is treated equivalent of being literate and knowledgeable. The government took the book as a primer for students in 1938, showing the influence of the encyclopaedia on Telugu society. It educated the masses and chiefly catered and is catering new words and enriched the language. In 1915, Andhra Vignana Sarwaswamu failed to compile in full, so did the Vignana Sawaswamu by the Telugu Bhasha Samiti and Potti Sriramulu Telugu University. As of 2025, except for Prasada Bhupaludu’s work, an encyclopaedia started is not completed as per the planned objective. Maybe making an encyclopaedia in Telugu is an overly ambitious and impossible task. Now all the information what seemed impossible a century ago and was estimated thirty years to compile is available at a click, thanks to the internet. The information that comes out of those clicks had these humongous efforts serving as a database behind them to cater for the present and future. Because everything is online and books these days are warming in our shelves. Maybe there is no requirement for an encyclopaedia in books any more, but the efforts are not in vain. This paper is a mere representation of encyclopaedic efforts to make Telugu Encyclopaedias and a tribute to those efforts.
[i] Prasada Bhupaludu, Andhra Vignanamu, Vol. 1, pp 1-3.
[ii] See A. R. Venkatachalapathy, The history of big book, pp 48.
[iii] Telugu Bhasha Samiti, Vignana Sarwaswamu, Vol. 13, pp 1-5.
References:-
1) Lakshamana Rao, K. V, Aurangazebu tana guruvuku rasina yuttaramu, Andhra Patrika ugadi sanchika, Bombay, 1910 pp 33-34
2) Komarraju, Venkata Lakshmana Rao, Andhra Vignana Sarwaswamu, The Telugu Encyclopaedia office, Madras, 1915,1916,1917.
3) Bhupaludu, Prasada , Andhra Vignanamu, S.R.P Works, Cocanada, 1938 pp 1-8.
4) Bapineedu, Maganti, Andhra Sarwaswamu, Visalandhra Publishers, Madras, 1943, pp 3-6.
5) Vignana Sarwaswamu, Telugu Bhasha Samiti, Madras. 1954 pp 1-6.
6) Venkataratnam, Gunji, Telugulo Vignana Sarwaswalu, Telugu Akademi, Hyderabad, 2012 pp 45-55, 65-79.
7) Venkatachalapathy,A. R, The brief history of a very big book, Permanent black, Ranikhet, 2022 pp 45-49.
8) Visvam, Vidvan. “Telugu Literature and K.V. Lakshmanarao.” Indian Literature 17, no. 1/2 1974 pp 191–99.
This version of this article was presented at the Andhra Pradesh History Congress, 47th session, Gudur. This article is currently a mimeo.
it can be cited as,
Monish Shanmukh Kasyap, Akshinthala,(2025, January) Producing A Very Big Book: The Making Of Telugu Encyclopaedia, Unpublished Manuscript (Mimeo).
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