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. Any Indian citizen who writes in any of the official languages of India is eligible for the honour. It is presented by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust founded by the Sahu Jain family, the publishers of the newspaper The Times of India.