Jnanpith Award

The Jnanpith Award (Hindi: ज्ञानपीठ पुरस्कार) is the highest literary award in India The Hindu It is presented by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust founded by the Sahu Jain family, the publishers of The Times of India newspaper.

The Award

The name of the award is taken from Sanskrit dyāna-pīṭha = "knowledge-seat".

The award carries a check for Rs. 700,000, a citation plaque and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts.

The award was instituted in 1961, and its first recipient, in 1965, was the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup. Any Indian citizen who writes in any of the official languages of India is eligible for the honor.

Prior to 1982, the awards were given for a single work by a writer; since then, the award has been given for a lifetime contribution to Indian literature. Seven awards each have been awarded in Kannada and Hindi and followed by five in Bengali and Malayalam, four in Urdu and three in Gujarati, Oriya and Marathi. The award announcements have lately been lagging behind the award-years. The awards for the...
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