Khatri merchants carried Punjabi trade from Bengal to Isfahan and Astrakhan
Around 1670, a French traveller counted roughly 10,000 Indian merchants and moneylenders in the Persian city of Isfahan, and most of them were Khatris from Punjab. This community of traders, scribes and bankers also produced all ten Sikh Gurus and helped shape the script Punjabi is still written in.
Rooted in the Malwa and Majha areas of Punjab, Khatris were long associated with banking, trade and record keeping, though some held land and others wove silk. Most scholars trace the name to the Sanskrit word for the warrior class, kshatriya, while one historian argues the link comes from two similar-sounding words being run together. Gurmukhi, the script of written Punjabi, grew out of a standardised version of the Landa script that Khatri traders used, and tradition credits its creation to Guru Angad.
Guru Nanak, who founded Sikhism in the 15th century, belonged to the Bedi Khatri clan; his successors came from the Trehan, Bhalla and Sodhi clans. Under Mughal rule many Khatris learned Persian and served as accountants, drafters and revenue officials, and by the 1700s they dominated commerce across Punjab, Afghanistan and much of India. In Bengal, the Burdwan Raj, a Khatri dynasty lasting from 1657 to 1955, drew further migration from Punjab.
Their networks stretched remarkably far. Khatri merchants appear in Astrakhan in Russia during the late 17th century, and caravan links from Punjab may reach back to around 1300. One historian places them in the top rank of trading communities in early modern India. In Gujarat, Khatri weavers bargained with the East India Company, withholding cloth in 1742 and later agreeing to weave exclusively for it until quotas were filled.
Soldiers and administrators emerged too. In the Sikh Empire, Hari Singh Nalwa, born in Gujranwala, led conquests that pushed the frontier past the Indus to the mouth of the Khyber Pass, and Dewan Mokham Chand commanded the victory at Attock. In Hyderabad, a Peshawari Khatri family joined the nobility, and Maharaja Kishen Prasad twice served as prime minister of the state. After the 1947 partition, large numbers of Khatris moved from the areas that became Pakistan into India.
Source: Khatri
