Urdu poet Gulzar and Sanskrit scholar Rambhadracharya are the recipients of the 2023 Jnanpith Award. They will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 11 lakh, a trophy, and a citation. It is the second time the award has been given for Sanskrit and the fifth time for Urdu.
The official selection committee said, “…Gulzar has [set] new milestones in the field of literature. In poetry, he invented a new genre ‘Triveni’ which is a non-mukaffa poem of three lines. [He] has also paid serious attention to children's poetry.”
Gulzar was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu in 2002, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2013, and the Padma Bhushan in 2004. His song “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire received an Oscar in 2009 and Grammy in 2010.
Rambhadracharya is a poet and writer in several Indian languages including Sanskrit, Hindi, Awadhi and Maithili. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2015.
The winners were selected by a committee led by Pratibha Rai, and including Madhav Kaushik, Damodar Mauzo, Suranjan Das, Purushottam Bilmale, Praful Shiledar, Harish Trivedi, Prabha Verma, Janaki Prasad Sharma, A Krishna Rao, and Jnanpith director Madhusudan Anand.