The
Jnanpith Award (also spelled as
Gyanpeeth Award) is a literary award in
India. Along with the
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country. The award was instituted in 1961. Eligibility is restricted to any Indian citizen who writes in one of the 22 languages listed in Schedule Eight of the Indian constitution. It is presented by the
Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust founded by the
Sahu Jain family, the publishers of the newspaper
The Times of India.