The Jnanpith Award is India’s oldest and highest literary award. The award was established in 1961 and first awarded in 1965. The Award considers both English and other Indian languages. Award given annually to an author for their outstanding contribution towards literature. This award eligibility is restricted to Indian citizens. It is not given posthumously. It is presented by Bhartiya Jnanpith to recognise outstanding contributions to Indian literature.
The Bhartiya Jnanpith, a research and cultural institute founded in 1944 by industrialist Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Sahu Jain family, conceived an idea in May 1961 to start scheme commanding national prestige and of international standard to select the best book out of the publications in Indian languages. Later in November, Rama Jain, the Founder President of the Bhartiya Jnanpith, invited a few literary experts to discuss various aspects of the scheme. Jain along with Kaka kalelkar, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Jainendra Kumar, Jagdish Chandra Mathur, Prabhakar Machwe, Akshay Kumar Jain and Laxmi Chandra Jain presented the initial draft to the then President of India Rajendra Prasad who had shown interest in the scheme’s implementation.
The first selection board consisted of Kalelkar, Niharranjan Ray, Karan Singh, R.R. Diwakar, V. Raghavan, B. Gopal Reddy, Harekrushna Mahatab, Ram Jain and Laxmi Chandra Jain and was headed by Sampurnanand. Works that were published between 1921 and 1951 were considered for the first award.
The nomination for the award are recieved from various literary experts, teachers, critics, universities and numerous literary and language associations. Every three years, an advisory committee is constituted for each of the languages. The language of the most recent recipients work is not eligible for consideration for the next two years. Each committee consist of three literary critics and scholars of their respective languages. All the nominations are scrutinized by the committee and their recommendations are submitted to the Jnanpith Award Selection Board.
