The Jnanpith
Award is given for the best creative literary writing by any Indian citizens in
any of the languages included in the VIII Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The award carries a cash price of Rs.2.5 lakh, a citation and a bronze replica
of Vagdevi.
The Jnanpith Award was instituted on May 22, 1961 The first award was given in
1965. So far, 40 eminent writers have received the award in 32 years. On two
occasions, the award was given to Kannada writers six times, five times each to
Hindi and Bengali writers, four times to Malayalam, thrice to Oriya, twice each
to Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and Urdu, and one each to Assamese, Punjabi and
Tamil writers.
| Year |
Author (Language) |
| 1965 |
G.Shankara Kurup (Malayalam) for his poems Odakkuzhal |
| 1966 |
Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya (Bengali) for the novel Ganadevta |
| 1967 |
Dr K.V Puttappa (Kannada) for Sri Ramayana Darshanam |
| 1967 |
Uma Shankar Joshi (Gujarati) for Nishitha |
| 1968 |
Sumitra Nandan Pant (Hindi) for Chidambara |
| 1969 |
Firaq Gorakpuri (Urdu) for Gul-e-Naghma |
| 1970 |
Viswanatha Satyanarayana (Telugu) for Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu |
| 1971 |
Bishnu Dey (Bengali) for Smriti Satta Bhavishyat |
| 1972 |
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (Hindi) for Urvashi |
| 1973 |
Dattareya Ramachandra Bendre (Kannada) for Nakutanti |
| 1973 |
Gopinath Mohanty (Oriya) for Mattimatal |
| 1974 |
Vishnu Sakaram Khandekar (Marathi) for Yayati |
| 1975 |
P.V Akilandam (Tamil) for his novel Chittirappavai |
| 1976 |
Asha Purna Devi (Bengali) for Pratham Pratisruti |
| 1977 |
K Shivaram Karnath (Kannada) for Mukajjiya Kanasugalu |
| 1978 |
S.H.V.Ajneya (Hindi) for his novel Kitni Navon men Kitni Bar |
| 1979 |
Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya (Assamese) for his novel Mrityunjay |
| 1980 |
S.K Pottekkatt (Malayalam) for his novel Oru Desattinte Katha |
| 1981 |
Amrita Pritam (Punjabi) for her literary collection Kagaz te Canvas in Punjabi |
|
From 1982, the award was given for overall contribution to literature |
|
| 1982 |
Mahadevi Varma (Hindi) |
| 1983 |
Masti Venkatesh Ayengar (Kannada) |
| 1984 |
Takazhi Sivashankar Pillai (Malayalam) |
| 1985 |
Pannalal Patel (Gujarati) |
| 1986 |
Sachidanand Rout Roy (Oriya) |
| 1987 |
Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar Kusumagraj (Marathi) |
| 1988 |
Dr C Narayanan Reddy (Telugu) |
| 1989 |
Qurratulain Hyder (Urdu) |
| 1990 |
V.K Gokak (Kannada) |
| 1991 |
Subhash Mukhopadhyay (Bengali) |
| 1992 |
Naresh Mehta (Hindi) |
| 1993 |
Sitakant Mahapatra (Oriya) |
| 1994 |
U R Anantha Murthy (Kannada) |
| 1995 |
M T Vasudevan Nair (Malayalam) |
| 1996 |
Mahasweta Devi (Bengali) |
| 1997 |
Ali Sardar Jafri (Urdu) |
| 1998 |
Girish Karnad (Kannada) |
| 1999 |
Nirmal Verma (Hindi) |
|
Gurdial Singh (Punjabi) |
|
| 2000 |
Indira Goswami (Assamese) |
| 2001 |
Rajendra Keshavlal Shah (Gujarati) |