The Jnanpith Award is an award given for excellence in the field of literature. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the prestigious literary awards in the country. The Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust established by Sahu Jain family the publishers of the leading newspaper The Times of India present this award. The award was instituted in 1961 and any Indian who writes in any of the official languages of India is entitled for the award.
The name Jnanpith is taken from the Sanskrit term `jnanapitha` which means knowledge seat. The award consists of a cheque of five lacs, a citation plaque and a bronze icon of Vagdevi, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and arts.
Before 1982, the awards were presented for a single work by a writer but after 1982 the award has also been given for lifetime contribution to Indian literature. The first recipient of this award was G Sankara Kurup for his work in Malayalam titled Odakkuzhal (flute) in the year 1965. The awardees in the following years are as follows,.
1965 - 1966 - Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya - Ganadevta - Bengali
1967 - Dr. K.V. Puttappa - Sri Ramayana Darshanam (Glimpses of Ramayana) - 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 (Four Strings) - Kannada
1973 - Gopinath Mohanty - Mattimatal - Oriya
1974 - Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar - Yayati - Marathi
1975 - P.V.Akilandam - Chitttrappavai - Tamil
1976 - Asha Purna Devi - Pratham Pratisruti - Bengali
1977 - K.Shivaram Karanth - Mookajjiya Kanasugalu (Mookajji`s dreams) - Kannada
1978 - Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan - 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 - Malayalam
1985 - Pannalal Patel - Gujarati
1986 - Sachidanand Rout Roy - Oriya
1987 - Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (Kusumagraj) - ("Natsamrat") Marathi
1988 - Dr.C. Narayana Reddy - Telugu
1989 - Qurratulain Hyder - Urdu
1990 - V. K. 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 - Malayalam
1996 - Mahasweta Devi - Bengali
1997 - Ali Sardar Jafri - Urdu
1998 - Girish Karnad - 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 - Marathi
2004 - Rahman Rahi - Kashmiri
