The Jnanpith Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented annually by the

Bharatiya Jnanpith Bharatiya Jnanpith a literary and research organization, based in New Delhi, India, was founded on February 18, 1944Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 1, p. 298 1987, Sahitya Akademi, by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Sahu Jain family and ...

to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature". Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English, with no posthumous conferral. From 1965 till 1981, the award was given to the authors for their "most outstanding work" and consisted of a citation plaque, a cash prize and a bronze replica of

Saraswati Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a g ...

, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom. The first recipient of the award was the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup who received the award in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal (''The Bamboo Flute''), published in 1950. The rules were revised in subsequent years to consider only works published during the preceding twenty years, excluding the year for which the award was to be given and the cash prize was increased to from 1981. , the cash prize has been revised to and out of twenty-three eligible languages the award has been presented for works in sixteen languages:

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

(eleven),

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

(eight), Bengali and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

(six each), Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Assamese and Telugu (three each), Punjabi, Tamil and Konkani (two each), English, Kashmiri and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

(one each). The award has been conferred upon fifty-eight writers including seven women authors. In 1976, Bengali novelist

Ashapoorna Devi Ashapurna Devi (8 January 1909 – 12 July 1995), also Ashapoorna Devi or Ashapurna Debi, was a prominent Indian novelist and poet in Bengali. In 1976, she was awarded the Jnanpith Award and Padma Shri by the Government of India, D.Litt. by ...

became the first woman to win the award and was honoured for the 1965 novel ''

Prothom Protishruti ''Prothom Protishruti'' (; ), also spelled Pratham Pratishruti, is a 1964 Bengali novel by Ashapurna Devi. Considered to be Devi's magnum opus, it tells a story of Satyabati who was given away in marriage at the age of eight to maintain the soci ...

'' (''The First Promise''), the first in a trilogy. The most recent recipients of the award are Assamese poet Nilmani Phookan and Konkani writer Damodar Mauzo, awarded for the years of 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Background

The

, a research and cultural institute founded in 1944 by industrialist Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Sahu Jain family, conceived an idea in May 1961 to start a scheme "commanding national prestige and of international standard" to "select the best book out of the publications in Indian languages". Later in November, Rama Jain, the Founder President of the Bharatiya Dnyanpith, invited a few literary experts to discuss various aspects of the scheme. Jain along with

Kaka Kalelkar Dattatreya Balkrishna Kalelkar (1 December 1885 – 21 August 1981), popularly known as Kaka Kalelkar, was an Indian independence activist, social reformer, journalist and an eminent follower of the philosophy and methods of Mahatma Gandhi. B ...

, Harivansh Rai Bachchan,

Ramdhari Singh Dinkar Ramdhari Singh (23 September 1908 – 24 April 1974), known by his pen name Dinkar, was an Indian Hindi and Maithili language poet, essayist, freedom fighter, patriot and academic. He emerged as a poet of rebellion as a consequence of his ...

, Jainendra Kumar,

Jagdish Chandra Mathur Jagdish Chandra Mathur (16 July 1917 –14 May 1978) was a Hindi playwright and writer.Chatak 2000 pg.''v'' He came into fame by his first play ''Konark''. He was born in a village near Khurja.Chatak 2000 pg.9 His other famous works includes ...

, Prabhakar Machwe, Akshaya Kumar Jain, and Lakshmi Chandra Jain presented the initial draft to the then

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Mur ...

Rajendra Prasad Rajendra Prasad (3 December 1884 – 28 February 1963) was an Indian politician, lawyer, Indian independence activist, journalist & scholar who served as the first president of Republic of India from 1950 to 1962. He joined the Indian Nationa ...

who had shown interest in the scheme's implementation. The idea was also discussed at the 1962 annual sessions of the All India Gujarati Sahitya Parishad and the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad. On 2 April 1962, around 300 writers of various Indian languages were invited to Delhi for the two sessions conducted by Dharamvir Bharati in which the draft was finalised and later presented to Prasad. The first award selection committee meeting was scheduled on 16 March 1963 and Prasad was appointed as its president. However, Prasad died on 28 February 1963 and thus the scheduled meeting was chaired by Kalelkar and

Sampurnanand Sampurnanand (1 January 1891 – 10 January 1969) was a teacher and politician in Uttar Pradesh, India. He served as the second Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1954 to 1960. If single tenures in the office of the Uttar Pradesh Chief M ...

acted as president of the committee. The first Selection Board consisted of Kalelkar, Niharranjan Ray, Karan Singh,

R. R. Diwakar Ranganath Ramachandra Diwakar (30 September 1894 – 15 January 1990) was an Indian writer and politician from Karnataka. Biography R. R. Diwakar was born on 30 September 1894. From the very beginning, he was interested in writing. He made m ...

, V. Raghavan,

B. Gopal Reddy Bezawada Gopala Reddy (5 August 1907 – 9 March 1997) was an Indian politician. He was Chief Minister of the erstwhile Andhra State (28 March 1955 – 1 November 1956) and Governor of Uttar Pradesh (1 May 1967 – 1 July 1972). He was popular ...

, Harekrushna Mahatab, Rama Jain, and Lakshmi Chandra Jain and was headed by Sampurnanand. Works that were published between 1921 and 1951 were considered for the first award. The nine language committees that were formed were to submit to the board nominations along with translations of the work into Hindi or English. The final round had four authors;

Kazi Nazrul Islam , pseudonym = bn, ধূমকেতু, Dhūmketu , image = Nazrul.jpg , image_size = , caption = Nazrul in Chittagong, 1926 , birth_date = 11 ''Joiṣṭhyô'', 1306 '' Bônggabdô ...

(Bengali), D. V. Gundappa (Kannada), Viswanatha Satyanarayana (Telugu), and G. Sankara Kurup (Malayalam). On 19 November 1966, Kurup was presented with the citation, statue of

, and a cheque for prize of at a ceremony held at Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi. In his acceptance speech, Kurup appreciated the concept of the new award and thanked it for bringing "integration of the diverse people of this land on a spiritual plane".

Rules and selection process

The nominations for the award are received from various literary experts, teachers, critics, universities, and numerous literary and language associations. Every three years, an advisory committee is constituted for each of the languages. The language of the most recent recipient's work is not eligible for consideration for the next two years. Each committee consists of three literary critics and scholars of their respective languages. All the nominations are scrutinised by the committee and their recommendations are submitted to the Jnanpith Award Selection Board The Selection Board consists of between seven and eleven members of "high repute and integrity". Each member is part of the committee for a term of three years which can also be extended further for two more terms. The recommendations of all language advisory committees are evaluated by the board based on complete or partial translations of the selected writings of the proposed writers into Hindi or English. The recipient for a particular year is announced by the Selection Board, which has final authority in selection.

List of recipients

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

* {{featured list Awards established in 1961 Events of The Times Group Indian literary awards * 1961 establishments in Delhi