Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith Award
Award Information
Category Literature (Individual)
Instituted 1961
First Awarded 1965
Last Awarded 2010[1]
Total Awarded 46[1] (51 persons)
Awarded by Bharatiya Jnanpith
Description Literary award
in India
First Awardee(s) G Sankara Kurup
Last Awardee(s) Amar Kant, Shrilal Shukla and Chandrashekhara Kambara[1]

The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship,[2] it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country.[3] It is presented by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust founded by the Sahu Jain family, the publishers of the The Times of India newspaper.

Contents

The Award

The name of the award is taken from Sanskrit words gnyāna and pīṭha (knowledge-seat). It carries a check for 7 lakh, a citation plaque and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Indian goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts.[4]

The award was instituted in 1961, and its first recipient, in 1965, was the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup. Any Indian citizen who writes in any of the official languages of India is eligible for the honour.

Prior to 1982, the awards were given for a single work by a writer; since then, the award has been given for a lifetime contribution to Indian literature. Nine individuals [Including the 2009 award which is being shared by two Hindi writers] writing in Hindi have been honoured with the award, eight in Kannada, five in Bengali and Malayalam, four in Urdu and three in Gujarati, Oriya and Marathi.

The award announcements have lately been lagging behind the award-years. The awards for the years 2005 and 2006 were announced on November 22, 2008, and were awarded to the Hindi writer Kunwar Narayan for 2005 and jointly to Konkani writer Ravindra Kelekar and Sanskrit scholar Satya Vrat Shastri for 2006.[5] Satya Vrat Shastri is the first Sanskrit poet to be conferred the award since its inception.[6] The awards for the 45th and 46th Jnanpith for the years 2009 and 2010 respectively, were announced on 20 September, 2011.[1] The 45th award was jointly conferred on Hindi littérateurs Amar Kant and Shrilal Shukla, and the 46th on the Kannada littérateur Chandrashekhara Kambara.[1]

Jnanpith Award recipients

Year State Name Works Language Picture
1965 Kerala G. Sankara Kurup Odakkuzhal (Flute) Malayalam
1966 West Bengal Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya Ganadevta Bengali
1967 Karnataka Kuppali Venkatappagowda Puttappa (Kuvempu) Sri Ramayana Darshanam Kannada
1967 Gujarat Umashankar Joshi Nishitha Gujarati
1968 Sumitranandan Pant Chidambara Hindi
1969 Uttar Pradesh Firaq Gorakhpuri Gul-e-Naghma Urdu
1970 Andhra Pradesh Viswanatha Satyanarayana Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu (A resourceful tree:Ramayana) Telugu
1971 Bengal Bishnu Dey Smriti Satta Bhavishyat Bengali
1972 Bihar Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' Urvashi Hindi
1973 Karnataka Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre Nakutanti (Naku Thanthi) (Four Strings) Kannada
1973 Orissa Gopinath Mohanty Paraja Oriya
1974 Maharashtra Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar Yayati Marathi
1975 Tamilnadu P. V. Akilan Chitttrappavai Tamil
1976 Bengal Ashapurna Devi Pratham Pratisruti Bengali
1977 Karnataka K. Shivaram Karanth Mookajjiya Kanasugalu (Mookajjis dreams) Kannada
1978 Uttar Pradesh Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Ajneya' Kitni Navon Men Kitni Bar (How many times in many boats?) Hindi
1979 Assam Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya Mrityunjay (Immortal) Assamese
1980 Kerala S. K. Pottekkatt Oru Desathinte Katha (Story of a land) Malayalam
1981 Amrita Pritam Kagaj te Canvas Punjabi
1982 Uttar Pradesh Mahadevi Varma Yama Hindi
1983 Karnataka Maasti Venkatesh Ayengar Chikkaveera Rajendra (Life and struggle of Kodava King Chikkaveera Rajendra) Kannada
1984 Kerala Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai Kayar {Coir} Malayalam
1985 Pannalal Patel Maanavi Ni Bhavaai (માનવીની ભવાઇ) Gujarati
1986 Sachidananda Rout Roy Oriya
1987 Maharashtra Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (Kusumagraj) Natsamrat Marathi
1988 Andhra Pradesh Dr. C. Narayana Reddy Vishwambhara Telugu
1989 Qurratulain Hyder Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar Urdu
1990 Karnataka V. K. Gokak (Vinayaka Krishna Gokak) Bharatha Sindhu Rashmi Kannada
1991 Bengal Subhas Mukhopadhyay Padati Bengali
1992 Naresh Mehta Hindi
1993 Sitakant Mahapatra "for outstanding contribution to the enrichment of Indian literature, 1973-92"[7] Oriya
1994 Karnataka U. R. Ananthamurthy for his contributions to Kannada literature Kannada
1995 Kerala Dr. M. T. Vasudevan Nair for his contributions to Malayalam literature Malayalam
1996 Bengal Mahasweta Devi Hajar Churashir Ma Bengali
1997 Ali Sardar Jafri Urdu
1998 Karnataka Girish Karnad "for his contributions to Kannada literature and for contributions to kannada theater (yayati)"[8] Kannada
1999 Nirmal Verma Hindi
1999 Gurdial Singh Punjabi
2000 Assam Indira Goswami Assamese
2001 Rajendra Keshavlal Shah Gujarati
2002 Tamilnadu D. Jayakanthan Tamil
2003 Maharashtra Vinda Karandikar Ashtadarshana (poetry) Marathi
2004 Jammu & Kashmir Rahman Rahi Subhuk Soda, Kalami Rahi and Siyah Rode Jaren Manz Kashmiri[9]
2005 Uttar Pradesh Kunwar Narayan Hindi[5]
2006 Goa Ravindra Kelekar Konkani[5]
2006 Uttar Pradesh Satya Vrat Shastri Sanskrit[6][10]
2007 Kerala Dr. O. N. V. Kurup for his contributions to Malayalam literature Malayalam[11]
2008 Uttar Pradesh Akhlaq Mohammed Khan 'Shahryar' Urdu[11]
2009 Uttar Pradesh Amar Kant Hindi[1]
2009 Uttar Pradesh Shrilal Shukla Hindi[1]
2010 Karnataka Chandrashekhara Kambara for his contributions to Kannada literature Kannada[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h [1], Amar Kant, Shrilal Shukla, Kambar win Jnanpith Award.
  2. ^ Report from The Hindu, January 2007.: the noted writer Manoj Das (in January 2007) "received the country's highest literary honour - Sahitya Akademi Fellowship."
  3. ^ Article from The Hindu
  4. ^ "Jnanpith award for Jayakanthan". Times of India (20 Mar 2005). 20 March 2005. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1056950.cms. Retrieved 2007-11-12. 
  5. ^ a b c "Kunwar Narayan to be awarded Jnanpith". Times of India. Nov 24, 2008. http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/Kunwar_Narayan_to_be_awarded_Jnanpith/articleshow/3752703.cms. Retrieved 2008-11-25. 
  6. ^ a b "Jnanpith Award presented". Chennai, India: The Hindu. Aug 20, 2009. http://www.hindu.com/2009/08/20/stories/2009082057081100.htm. Retrieved August 20, 2009. 
  7. ^ Jnanpith, p. 18
  8. ^ The multi-faceted playwright, Frontline (magazine)
  9. ^ 40th Jnanpith Award to Eminent Kashmiri Poet Shri Rahman Rahi
  10. ^ 41st and 42nd Jnanpith Awards, Official Press release
  11. ^ a b "Malayalam, Urdu writers claim Jnanpith awards". The Hindu (Chennai, India). 25 September 2010. http://www.hindu.com/2010/09/25/stories/2010092556201600.htm. Retrieved 25 September 2010. 

External links

Jnanpith Award
1965-1985
1986-2000

Sachidananda Rout Roy (1986) · Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (1987) · C. Narayana Reddy (1988) · Qurratulain Hyder (1989) · V. K. Gokak (1990) · Subhas Mukhopadhyay (1991) · Naresh Mehta (1992) · Sitakant Mahapatra (1993) · U. R. Ananthamurthy (1994) · M. T. Vasudevan Nair (1995) · Mahasweta Devi (1996) · Ali Sardar Jafri (1997) · Girish Karnad (1998) · Nirmal Verma, Gurdial Singh (1999) · Indira Goswami (2000)
2001-present