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.

Jnanpith Award -  Recent News

Eminent Malayalam litterateur ONV Kurup and noted Urdu poet Akhlaq Khan Shahryar have been chosen for the Jnanpith Award for the year 2007 and 2008 respectively for their contribution to literature.

The list of award winners so far

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)

Ibn-Batuta: was a great scholar and traveller from South Africa who
came to India in 1333 A.D. during the reign of Mohammd Tughlaq
and wrote about him. He described Mohammad Tughlak as the ‘won-
der of the age’. He wrote that during the transfer of capital, Mohd-
bin-Tughlak dragged even blind and crippled to Daulatabad. He spent
8 years in India on his way to China