:Agrawal

Agrawals are one of the Bania (merchant) communities in India, which includes other mercantile communities like Maheshwari, and Oswals.{{cite book |last1=Hanks |first1=Patrick |title=Dictionary of American Family Names |date=8 May 2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-977169-1 |page=xcvi |language=en|quote=The Banias of northern India are really a cluster of several communities, of which the Agarwal Banias, Oswal Banias, and Porwal Banias are mentioned separately in connection with certain surnames.}}{{Cite book |last=Harishchandra |first=Bharatendu |title=Agarwalon ki utpatti |date=2020-10-23 |publisher=bharatenduHarichandra |location=खेमराज श्रीकृष्णदास अध्यक्ष : श्रीवेंकटेश्वर प्रेस, ९१/१०९, खेमराज श्रीकृष्णदास मार्ग, ७ वी खेतवाडी बैंक रोड कार्नर, मुंबई - ४०० ००४. दूरभाष/फैक्स-०२२-२३८५७४५६. खेमराज श्रीकृष्णदास ६६, हडपसर इण्डस्ट्रियल इस्टेट, पुणे - ४११०१३. दूरभाष-०२०-२६८७१०२५, फेक्स -०२०-२६८७४१०७. गंगाविष्णु श्रीकृष्णदास, लक्ष्मी वेंकटेश्वर प्रेस व बुक डिपो श्रीलक्ष्मीवेंकटेश्वर प्रेस बिल्डींग, जूना छापाखाना गली, अहिल्याबाई चौक, कल्याण, बि. ठाणे, महाराष्ट्र - ४२१ ३०१ दूरभाष/फेक्स-०२५१-२२०९०६१. खेमराज श्रीकृष्णदास चौक, वाराणसी (उ.प्र.) २२१ ००१. दूरभाष - ०५४२-२४२००७८. |language=Hindi}}

In inscriptions and texts, the original home of the Agrawal community is stated as Agroha, near Hisar, Haryana.

• In Pradumna Charita of samvat 1411 (1354 AD), the Agrawal poet Sadharu wrote "अग्रवाल की मेरी जात, पुर अग्रोहा महि उतपात" ("My jāti is Agrawal, and I trace my roots to the city of Agroha).Dr. Kasturachand Kasliwal, Khandelwal Jain Samaj ka Vrihad Itihas, 1969, p. 49
• In his Padma PuranaMuni Sabhachandra aur Unaka Padmapurana, Kasturchanda Kasliwal, 1984 of VS 1711 (AD 1654), Muni Sabhachandra writes "अग्रोहे निकट प्रभु ठाढे जोग, करैं वन्दना सब ही लोग|| अग्रवाल श्रावक प्रतिबोध, त्रेपन क्रिया बताई सोध||", (When Lohacharya was near Agroha, he taught the 53 actions to the Agrawal shravakas).
• In a Sanskrit inscription, the Agrawals are referred to as Agrotaka ("from Agroha"). A 1272 AD inscription states: "सं १३२९ चैत्र वुदी दशम्यां बुधवासरे अद्येह योगिनिपुरे समस्त राजावलि-समलन्कृत ग्यासदीन राज्ये अत्रस्थित अग्रोतक परम श्रावक जिनचरणकमल".Parmananda Jain Shastri. Agrawalon ka Jain sanskriti mein yogadan. Anekanta Oct. 1966, p. 277-281

Some of the Agrawals adapted Jainism under the influence of Lohacharya.{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=K. S. |title=People of India: Bihar |date=2008 |publisher=Anthropological Survey of India |isbn=978-81-85579-09-2 |page=46 |language=en |quote=The bulk of the Agrawals belong to Vaishnava sect of Hinduism. ... Agrawals, it is believed, were converted to Jainism by Sri Loha Charyaji between 27 and 77 years of the Vikram era.}}

The Agrawal merchant Nattal Sahu, and the Agrawal poet, Vibudh Shridhar, lived during the reign of Tomara King Anangapal of Yoginipur (now Mehrauli, near Delhi).An Early Attestation of the Toponym Ḍhillī, by Richard J. Cohen, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1989, p. 513-519 Vibudh Shridhar wrote Pasanahacariu in 1132 AD, which includes a historical account of Yoginipur (early Delhi near Mehrauli) then.

In 1354, Firuz Shah Tughluq had started the construction of a new city near Agroha, called Hisar-e-Feroza ("the fort of Firuz"). Most of the raw material for building the town was brought from Agroha.[http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010818/windows/slice.htm The story of Hisar] The town later came to be called Hisar. Hisar became a major center of the Agrawal community. Some Agrawals are also said to have moved to the Kotla Firoz Shah fort in Delhi, built by Firuz Shah Tughlaq.

During the era of Islamic administrative rule in India, some Agrawal, as with the Saraogi, migrated to the Bikaner State.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} The Malkana include Muslim Agrawals, who converted from Hinduism to Islam during this time and were given land tracts along the Yamuna by Afghan rulers.

In the early 15th century, Agrawals flourished under the Tomaras of Gwalior.Kashtha Sangha Bhattarakas of Gwalior and Agrawal Shravakas, Dr. K. C. Jain, 1963, p. 72{{full citation needed|date=August 2021}} According to several Sanskrit inscription at the Gwalior Fort in Gwalior District, several traders (Sanghavi Kamala Simha, Khela Brahmachari, Sandhadhip Namadas etc.) belonging to Agrotavansha (Agrawal clan) supported the sculptures and carving of idols at the place.{{cite web

| url=http://www.webdunia.com/dharm/jain/gopachal/19_gopachal9.htm

| title=गोपाचल के जिन मन्दिर एवं प्रतिमाएँ

| publisher=Webdunia.com

| language=hi

| access-date=2007-06-02

| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041224031241/http://www.webdunia.com/dharm/jain/gopachal/19_gopachal9.htm

| archive-date=24 December 2004

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Historian K.C. Jain comments:

{{cquote|Golden Age of the Jain Digambar Temple in Gwalior under the Tomara rulers inspired by the Kashtha Bhattarakas and their Jaina Agrawal disciples who dominated the Court of father and son viz. Dungar Singh (1425-59)and Kirti Singh (1459–80) with the Poet-Laureate Raighu as their mouthpiece and spokesman, a centenarian author of as many as thirty books, big and small of which two dozen are reported to be extant today. Verify the advent of the Hisar-Firuza-based Jain Agrawals who functioned as the ministers and treasurers of the ruling family had turned the Rajput State of Gwalior into a Digambara Jain Centre par excellence representing the culture of the Agrawal multi-millionner shravakas as sponsored by them.}}

Later, during the Mughal rule, and during the British East India Company administration, some Agrawals migrated to Bihar and Calcutta, who became the major component of the Marwaris.{{cite book |first=Anne |last=Hardgrove |title=Community and Public Culture: The Marwaris in Calcutta, c. 1897–1997 |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-23112-216-0}}{{page needed|date=August 2021}}

Agrawals belong to various gotras, traditionally said to be seventeen and a half in number. According to Bharatendu Harishchandra's Agrawalon ki Utpatti (1871), Agrasen - the legendary progenitor of the community - performed 17 sacrifices and left the eighteenth incomplete, resulting in this number. Bharatendu also mentions that Agrasen had 17 queens and a junior queen, but does not mention any connection between the number of gotras and the number of queens, or describe how the sacrifices led to the formation of the gotras.{{sfn|Lawrence A. Babb|2004|pp=201-202}} Another popular legend claims that a boy and girl from the Goyan gotra married each other by mistake, which led to the formation of a new "half" gotra. Another popular belief that since Maharaj Agrasen has 17 son and one daughter so where his daughter was married the gotra of daughter in laws were adopted as half gotra in Agrawals, thus 17.5 gotra.{{sfn|M. S. Gore|1990|p=69}}

Historically, there has been no unanimity regarding number and names of these seventeen and a half gotras, and there are regional differences between the list of gotras. The Akhil Bhartiya Agrawal Sammelan, a major organization of Agrawals, has created a standardized list of gotras, which was adopted as an official list by a vote at the organization's 1983 convention.{{sfn|Lawrence A. Babb|2004|pp=193-194}} Because the classification of any particular gotra as "half" is considered insulting, the Sammelan provides a list of following 18 gotras:{{sfn|Lawrence A. Babb|2004|p=192}}

{{columns-list|colwidth=15em|

1. Bansal
2. Goyal
3. Kuchhal
4. Kansal
5. Bindal
6. Jindal
7. Mittal
8. Tingal
9. Tayal
10. Garg
11. Bhandal
12. Nangal
13. Mangal
14. Airan
15. Madhukul
16. Goyan/Gangal
17. Singhal/Singhala/Singla

}}

The existence of all the gotras mentioned in the list is controversial, and the list does not include several existing clans such as Kotrivala, Pasari, Mudgal, Tibreval, and Singhal.{{sfn|Lawrence A. Babb|2004|p=193}}{{request quotation|date=December 2022}}

{{main |List of Agrawals}}

• Agrawal Jain

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• {{cite book |author=Lawrence A. Babb |title=Alchemies of Violence: Myths of Identity and the Life of Trade in Western India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=74tUY0le33UC&pg=PA200 |year=2004 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=978-0-7619-3223-9 }}
• {{cite book |author=M. S. Gore |author-link=Madhav Sadashiv Gore |title=Urbanization and Family Change |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GpLeY2_oT8kC&pg=PA69 |year=1990 |publisher=Popular Prakashan |isbn=978-0-86132-262-6 }}

{{refend}}

• {{Commons category-inline}}

{{Authority control}}{{Social groups of Rajasthan}}{{Social groups of Maharashtra}}

Category:Bania communities

Category:Social groups of Rajasthan

Category:Social groups of Haryana

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Category:Surnames of Hindu origin

Category:People from Hisar district

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Category:Aggarwal