Tamil words however, was restricted to prose works only. There was and still is a firm belief that in poetry if the words are separated and split the rhythm and diction were lost; hence to this day beginners do encounter difficulties in poetry. Incidentally it is interesting to note that some of the books (of poetry) that Pope used show pencil and ink lines used by him to separate the joined words (See Plate No.12).

Paper books were still unknown and the press had not found its way yet to India. Most of the works in Tamil were in Ōlai (Manuscript form) and no two copies were identical. Some of the great works were jealously guarded and were inaccessible to the foreign missionary. It is of importance to note that the authorship of a work was usually omitted and often the original work was never obtained and one had to be satisfied with a commentary.

Once the printing press was installed (to print only Missionary works in the beginning) and the Missionaries began to print their works, they had to mention numerous references and comparisons and hence gave their respective authors. This again fixed a new milestone in the development of Tamil. Native scholars began to imitate the Missionaries and began to include the authors’ names also. This again is a permanent contribution of theirs, though only indirect.

By the time, successors of Beschi and Ziegenbalg had reached the helm of affairs much had been evolved by the earlier men to make the study and writing of Tamil easy.

Beschi and Ziegenbalg took great pains to prepare the study of Tamil in the light of their languages. This naturally helped their successors to learn the language quicker and hence they were able to contribute the time thus saved to various kinds of researches in the language. Caldwell surely must have greatly benefited by this and so also Pope.

In the beginning, there were only a few missions but later as time passed, various other missions were founded in Andhra (1699) in Karnataka and other parts of South India. They had their own