Karnataka has the distinction of being home to seven Jnanpith Awardees for Kannada language, perhaps the highest for any language, other than Hindi.

These seven include: Kupalli Venkatappa Puttappa (Kuvempu); Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre (Ambikatanayadatta); Kota Shivarama Karanth; Maasti Venkatesha Iyengar (Srinivasa, Maasti); Vinayaka Krishna Gokak; Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy; Girish Karnad.