The Saraswati Samman is an annual award for outstanding prose or poetry literary works in any of the 22

languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known ...

listed in Schedule VIII of the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ...

. It is named after the Hindu goddess of knowledge,

Saraswati Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a g ...

. The Saraswati Samman was instituted in 1991 by the

K. K. Birla Foundation The K.K. Birla Foundation was established in 1991 by Krishna Kumar Birla in Delhi. Its mission is to promote literature (especially Hindi literature) and the arts, as well as education and social work. It regularly gets mentioned in the media for ...

. It consists of ₹15,00,000, a citation and a plaque. Candidates are selected from literary works published in the previous ten years by a panel that included scholars and former award winners. The inaugural award was given to Harivanshrai 'Bachchan' for his four volume autobiography, '' Kya Bhooloon Kya Yaad Karoon'', ''Needa Ka Nirman Phir'', ''Basere Se Door'' and ''Dashdwar se Sopan Tak''.

Awardees

Notes

External links

* * {{Saraswati Samman Indian literary awards Awards established in 1991 1991 establishments in India