The Jnanpith Award is an Indian literary award given yearly by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to a writer for their “outstanding contribution towards literature”. Started in 1961, the award is given only on Indian authors writing in Indian languages the award has been presented for works in sixteen languages: Hindi, English, Kannada, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Urdu, Telugu, Assamese, Punjabi, and Tamil, Kashmiri, Konkani and Sanskrit. English was included three years ago as the language of Gyanpeeth Award. The award has been conferred upon fifty-seven writers including seven women authors. In 1976, Bengali novelist Ashapoorna Devi became the first woman to win the award and was honored for the 1965 novel Pratham Pratisruti (The First Promise), the first in a trilogy. This award consists of citation plaque, the cash prize of Rs. 11 lakh and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom. The first remittee of this award was the Malayalam author G. Sankara Kurup who got the award in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal (The Bamboo Flute) that was published in 1950. The nomination forms for the award are accepted from various literary experts, teachers, critics, universities and numerous literary and language associations.