Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith Award (pronounced Gyanpeeth Award) is the highest literary honour presented by the Government of India. The award was instituted in 1961 and the first award was given to the Malayalam writer G Shankara Kurup in 1965. An Indian citizen who writes in any of the official languages of India is eligible for the honour. The award carries a cheque for Rs. 250,000, a citation and a bronze replica of Vagdevi.

Before 1982, the awards were given for a single work by a writer. From 1982, the award is being given for overall contribution to Indian literature. So far Kannada writers have won 7 awards which is the highest for any language. Hindi writers have won 6 awards.

List of Awardees
Year Name Works Language
1965 G Sankara Kurup Odakkuzhal (Flute) Malayalam
1966 Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya Ganadevta Bengali
1967 Kuppali Venkatappagowda Puttappa (Kuvempu)
Sri Ramayana Darshanam Kannada
1967 Umashankar Joshi Nishitha Gujarati
1968 Sumitranandan Pant Chidambara Hindi
1969 Firaq Gorakhpuri Gul-e-Naghma Urdu
1970 Viswanatha Satyanarayana Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu (A resourceful tree:Ramayana) Telugu
1971 Bishnu Dey Smriti Satta Bhavishyat Bengali
1972 Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' Urvashi Hindi
1973 Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre Nakutanti (Naku Thanthi) (Four Strings) Kannada
1973 Gopinath Mohanty Paraja Oriya
1974 Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar Yayati Marathi
1975 P.V.Akilan Chitttrappavai Tamil
1976 Asha Purna Devi Pratham Pratisruti Bengali
1977 K.Shivaram Karanth Mookajjiya Kanasugalu (Mookajjis dreams) Kannada
1978 Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Ajneya' Kitni Navon Men Kitni Bar (How many times in many boats?) Hindi
1979 Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya Mrityunjay (Immortal) Assamese
1980 S. K. Pottekkatt Oru Desattinte Katha (Story of a land) Malayalam
1981 Amrita Pritam Kagaj te Canvas Punjabi
1982 Mahadevi Varma Yama Hindi
1983 Maasti Venkatesh Ayengar Chikkaveera Rajendra (Life and struggle of Kodava King Chikkaveera Rajendra) Kannada
1984 Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai Kayar {Coir} Malayalam
1985 Pannalal Patel Maanavi Ni Bhavaai (??????? ????) Gujarati
1986 Sachidananda Rout Roy Oriya
1987 Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (Kusumagraj) Natsamrat Marathi
1988 Dr.C. Narayana Reddy Vishwambhara Telugu
1989 Qurratulain Hyder Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar Urdu
1990 V. K. Gokak (Vinayaka Krishna Gokak) Bharatha Sindhu Rashmi Kannada
1991 Subhas Mukhopadhyay Bengali
1992 Naresh Mehta Hindi
1993 Sitakant Mahapatra Oriya
1994 U.R. Ananthamurthy Kannada
1995 M. T. Vasudevan Nair Randamoozham [second chance} Malayalam
1996 Mahasweta Devi Bengali
1997 Ali Sardar Jafri Urdu
1998 Girish Karnad for his contributions to modern Indian drama[5] Kannada
1999 Nirmal Verma Hindi
1999 Gurdial Singh Punjabi
2000 Indira Goswami Assamese
2001 Rajendra Keshavlal Shah Gujarati
2002 D. Jayakanthan Tamil
2003 Vinda Karandikar Ashtadarshana (poetry) Marathi
2004 Rahman Rahi Subhuk Soda, Kalami Rahi and Siyah Rode Jaren Manz Kashmiri [6]
2005 Kunwar Narayan Hindi[3]
2006 Ravindra Kelekar Konkani[3]
2006 Satya Vrat Shastri Sanskrit[4][7]