JNANPITH AWARD

JNANPITH AWARD

Field Literature

Instituted in : 1965

Cash Value : ` 5 lakh, a citation and a Vagdevi statue Awarded to outstanding authors of creative literature in any of the Indian languages recognized by the Constitution of India. It was sponsored by the Bharatiya Jnanpith a culturo-literary society, founded in 1944 by Shanti Prasad Jain, an eminent industrialist.

First recipient : G. Sankara Kurup (Kerala)

First women recipient : Ashapoorna Devi (Calcutta)

The earlier winners of Jnanpith Award created by Shanti Prasad Jain and Rama Jain in 1963 for promoting outstanding literary works in regional languages, include Mahadevi Verma, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Girish Karnad, Amrita Pritam, U.R. Ananthamurthy and Quarratulain Hyder. So far there have been 39 recipients of this award.

LIST OF JNANPITH AWARDEES

Year Name Works Language

1965 G. Sankara Kurup Odakkuzhal (flute) Malayalam

1966 Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya Ganadevta Bengali

1967 Dr. K.V. Puttappa Sri Ramayana Darshanam Kannada

(Glimpses of Ramayana)

1967 Umashankar Joshi Nishitha Gujarati

1968 Sumitranandan Pant Chidambara Hindi

1969 Firaq Gorakhpuri Gul-e-Naghma Urudu

1970 Viswanatha Satyanarayana Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu Telugu

(A resourceful tree: Ramayana)

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 Chittrappavai Tamil

1976 Asha Purna Devi Pratham Pratisruti Bengali

1977 K. Shivaram Karanth Mookajjiya Kanasugalu Kannada

2014 Jitendra Actor  (Mookajji’s dreams)

1978 Sachchidananda Hirananda Kitni Navan Men Kitni Bar

Vatsyayan (How many times in many boats?) Hindi

1979 Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya Mrityunjay (Immortal) Assamese

1980 S.K. Pottekkatt Oru Desattinte Katha Malayalam

(Story of a land)

1981 Amrita Pritam Kagaj te Canvas Punjabi

1982 Mahadevi Verma Yama Hindi

1983 Maasti Venkatesh Ayengar Chikkaveera Rajendra Kanada (Life and Struggle of Kodava King Chikkaveera Rajendra)

1984 Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai Malayalam

1985 Pannalal Patel Gujarati

1986 Sachindanand Rout Roy Oriya

1987 Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (“Natsamrat”) Marathi

(Kusumagraj)

1988 Dr. C. Narayana Reddy Vishwambhara Telugu

1989 Quarratulain Hyder Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar Urdu

1990 V.K. Gokak Bharatha Sindhu Rashmi Kannada

1991 Subhas Mukhopadhyay Padati Bengali

1992 Naresh Mehta Hindi

1993 Sitakant Mahapatra For outstanding contribution to the Oriya Environment of Indian literature 1973–92

1994 U.R. Ananthamurthy Kannada

1995 M.T. Vasudevan Nair Malayalam

1996 Mahasweta Devi Bengali

1997 Ali Sardar Jafri Urdu

1998 Girish Karnad Tuglaq 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 Subuk Soda, Kalami Rahi and Siyah Marathi Rode Jaren Man

2004 Rahman Rahi Literary work in Kashmiri language Kashmiri

2005 Kunwar Narain For his contribution to Hindi literature Hindi

2006 Satyavrat Shastri For his contribution to Sanskrit Sanskrit literature

2006 Ravindra Kelekar For his contribution to Konkani Konkani literature

2007 O. N. V. Kurup Malaylam

2008 Akhlaq Mohammed Khan Shahryar Urdu

2009 Amar Kent & Shrilal Shukla Hindi

2010 Chandrashekhara Kambara For his contributions to Kanata literature Kanada

2011 Pratibha ray For his contribution to Telugu literature Oriya

2012 Ravuri Bharadhwaja For his contribution to Telugu literature Telugu