What is the Jnanpith Award called?
The 'Jnanpith Award' is the highest award given for Indian literature by the Bharatiya Jnanpith Trust. The Bharatiya Jnanpith Award was established in the year 1965. Any person of the country who writes in any of the 22 languages mentioned in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India is eligible for this award. Till now Hindi and Kannada language writers have received this honor for the maximum number of times. In 1965, Malayalam writer G Shankar Kurup was awarded the first Jnanpith Award.
Brief information about Jnanpith Award:
| Category of award | Literature |
| Establishment year | 1965 |
| Prize money | 11 lakh rupees |
| First winner | G Shankar Kurup (Malayalam) |
| India's first woman winner | Ashapurna Devi (Bengali) |
| last winner | Damodar Mauzo (2021/2022) |
| Description | Highest Award for Indian Literature |
How much prize money is given in Jnanpith Award?
It carries a prize money of Rs 11 lakh, a citation and a bronze statue of Vagdevi. When the Jnanpith Award was instituted in the year 1965, at that time the prize money was only one lakh rupees. In the year 2005, the prize money was increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 7 lakh, which has been increased to Rs 11 lakh at present.
57th Jnanpith Award 2021/2022:
Damodar Mauzzo is a Goan novelist, story writer, critic and essayist. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award (Konkani) in 1983 for his novel Carmelin.
56th Jnanpith Award 2020:
Akkitham, a prominent Malayalam poet, was selected for the 56th Jnanpith Award. The famous Indian poet Akkitham from Malayalam was selected for the 56th Jnanpith Award 2019 by the Jnanpith Selection Board in a meeting. The name Akkitham is taken with reverence in the Malayalam poetry world. He was born in 1926 and full name is Akkitham Achuthan Namboodiri and he is popularly known as Akkitham.
He has written 55 books out of which 45 are poetry collections. A Padma awardee, Akkitham has also been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (twice), Mathrubhumi Award, Vayalar Award and Kabir Samman.
List of Jnanpith Award Winners from the year 1965 till now:-
| The year | Writers honored with Jnanpith Award |
| 2021/2022 | Damodar Mauzo (Konkani) |
| 2020 | Neelamani Phukan (Assamese) |
| 2019 | Akkitham Achuthan Namboodiri (Malayalam) |
| 2018 | Amitav Ghosh (English) |
| 2017 | Krishna Sobti (Hindi) |
| 2016 | Shankha Ghosh (Bangla) |
| 2015 | Raghuveer Choudhary (Gujarati) |
| 2014 | Bhalchandra Nemade (Marathi) and Raghuveer Choudhary (Gujarati) |
| 2013 | Kedarnath Singh (Hindi) |
| 2012 | Ravuri Bharadwaj (Telugu) |
| 2011 | Pratibha Rai (Odia) |
| 2010 | Chandrasekhar Kambar (Kannada) |
| 2009 | Amarkant and Srilal Shukla (Hindi) |
| 2008 | Akhlaq Muhammad Khan Shahryar (Urdu) |
| 2007 | ONV Kurup (Malayalam) |
| 2006 | Rabindra Kelkar (Konkani) and Satyavrat Shastri (Sanskrit) |
| 2005 | Kunwar Narayan (Hindi) |
| 2004 | Rahman Rahi (Kashmiri) |
| 2003 | Vinda Karandikar (Marathi) |
| 2002 | Dandapani Jayakantan (Tamil) |
| 2001 | Rajendra Keshavlal Shah (Gujarati) |
| 2000 | Indira Goswami (Assamese) |
| 1999 | Nirmal Verma (Hindi) and Gurdial Singh (Punjabi) |
| 1998 | Girish Karnad (Kannada) |
| 1997 | Ali Sardar Jafri (Urdu) |
| 1996 | Mahasweta Devi (Bangla) |
| 1995 | MT Vasudev Nair (Malayalam) |
| 1994 | UR Ananthamurthy (Kannada) |
| 1993 | Sitakant Mohapatra (Odia) |
| 1992 | Naresh Mehta (Hindi) |
| 1991 | Subhash Mukhopadhyay (Bengali) |
| 1990 | VK Gokak (Kannada) |
| 1989 | Kurtul N. Haider (Urdu) |
| 1988 | Dr. C Narayana Reddy (Telugu) |
| 1987 | Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar Kusumagraj (Marathi) |
| 1986 | Satchidananda Routray (Odia) |
| 1985 | Pannalal Patel (Gujarati) |
| 1984 | Takshi Sivashankara Pillai (Malayalam) |
| 1983 | Masti Venkatesh Iyengar (Kannada) |
| 1982 | Mahadevi Varma (Hindi) |
| 1981 | Amrita Pritam (Punjabi) |
| 1980 | SK Potato (Malayalam) |
| 1979 | Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya (Assamese) |
| 1978 | HS agnostic (Hindi) |
| 1977 | K. Shivaram Karanth (Kannada) |
| 1976 | Ashapurna Devi (Bangla) |
| 1975 | PV Akilanandam (Tamil) |
| 1974 | Vishnu Sakha Khandekar (Marathi) |
| 1973 | Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre (Kannada) and Gopinath Mahanti (Odia) |
| 1972 | Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (Hindi) |
| 1971 | Vishnu Dey (Bangla) |
| 1970 | Vishwanath Satyanarayana (Telugu) |
| 1969 | Firaq Gorakhpuri (Urdu) |
| 1968 | Sumitranandan Pant (Hindi) |
| 1967 | KV Puttapa (Kannada) and Umashankar Joshi (Gujarati) |
| 1966 | Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay (Bengali) |
| 1965 | G Shankar Kurup (Malayalam) |
Frequent Asked Questions (FAQs):
𝒜. In 1965
𝒜. 11 lakh rupees
𝒜. In the field of economics
𝒜. Literature
𝒜. Zee Shankar Qurup
𝒜. Ashapurnana Devi
𝒜. Sahitya Akademi Award
𝒜. Sahitya Akademi Fellowship