Barnwal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barnwal (also written as Baranwal or Barnawal in English; in Hindi 
), pronounced as ba-rn-wal; is the surname or the last name of one of the high-ranking business classes in India.
Baranwals were one of the most prominent trading communities of medieval North India having a lineage similar to the Agarwals, who are more 'visible'. This community lost most of its glory during the continuous Islamic attacks on the Hindu India around 1100 AD.
This community was started by Raja Ahivarn, whose ancestors had moved to a place called Ahar in North India. Ahar is the same place where the famous ‘Khandan Van’ of Mahabharata period is located. Some 400 years after Mahabharata, King Ahivarn spread his reach and renamed the Ahar kingdom on his own name as Varn-sahar and called all people living under his kingship as Varnwals.
Over the period of time Varnwal started getting pronounced & subsequently written as Barnwal. (This is one of the classic cases of phonetic spelling or respelling i.e. writing a word as it is getting pronounced. History is replete with such changes with some of the familiar ones being Vasant as Basant; Varsha as Barsha; Vadehi as Badehi; Stephen as Steven; Shri as Sri; Shram as Sharam; Kram as Karam; Jyoti as Jyothi; Valmiki as Balmiki.)
That Varn-sahar or Barn-sahar is today’s Bulendsahar of Western Uttar Pradesh now part of Delhi NCR.
King Ahivarn was a Kshatriya and a Suryavanshi (lineage of the Sun). He was the 21st descendant of Samrath (Emperor) Mandhata, the ruler of Ayodhya. As per Mahalakshmi Vrat Katha, it is under Emperor Mandhata lineage that at one stage son of King Vallabh, Agrasen was born & at another stage son of King Parmaal, Ahivarn was born; both of whom further started their own Vansh: Agrawal (or Agarwal) & Varnwal (or Barnwal). Because they are 'Vanshaj' of Kshatriya Kings, due to this reason Barnwals & Agarwals though part of the Vaish caste sometimes consider themselves as 'separate' castes and do not like being generalised as Banias.
As per an old treatise on Indian Caste system 'Jati Bhaskar', it is understood that Samrath Mandhata had two sons Gunadhi & Mohan. King Parmaal was the descendant of King Gunadhi while King Vallabh was the descendant of King Mohan.
During 1192 AD when Mohammad Gori attacked India, his Senapati (Military commander) Qutubbudin surrounded Fort Barn and with the help of traitors was able to kill King Chandrasen Dor & in the process take control of the Barn kingdom. He ordered the inhabitant of Barn-sahar to either adopt Islam or die. Most of the people were brutally killed and their head hanged on the fort minars.
After the fall of Barn-sahar the community lost the leadership and direction & in the process scattered to different parts of India, mostly to the Gangetic plains of India and started living under the various family names of Lala, Modi, Goyal, Bakshi, Choudhary, Patwari, Parsariya, Simriya, Nagar, Arya, Shah.
Some the Barnwals who were 'Jamindars' and had received the title of 'Rai-Bahadur' during the British rule of India used to have Singh as their surname and this is continued to be written by their family members even today.
Over the period of time the socially awaken class among the Barnwal have been writing more generic surnames like Lal, Gupta, Prasad, Anand, Prakash & the ubiquitous Kumar in order to socialise & intermingle with the society at large.
At present the Barnwal population is around half a million. They are mostly spread in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand & West Bengal along with a sprinkled presence in Rajasthan, MP & Maharastra and the neighboring Kingdom of Nepal. Some of them have spread globally & settled down in UK and USA.
Barnwals other than marrying among themselves, have also been marrying into other high class merchant communities like Agrawal & Jain families. In MP & Rajasthan where they are relatively few in numbers they list themselves in Agarwal Matrimonial sites.
Barnwal social activities have been mostly limited and confined to small regions. One of them is Baranwal Sankalp in Dhanbad, Jharkhand and another Barnwal Chandrika in Varanasi, Eastern UP.
Of-late there have been some efforts to unite & bring this community on a common platform. Internet has proved a boon in this regard by acting as distance bridge - social & physical.
- [baranwal@yahoogroups.com] & [baranwal@googlegroups.com] are the group ids for the Barnwals interactive discussion forum.
- http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/baranwal/matri.html is the Barnwal Matrimonial Site.
Some individual links on Barnwal diaspora:
- http://www.freewebs.com/baranwals/
- http://baranwal.tripod.com/
- http://www.angelfire.com/ak/baranwal/
As per an old book 'Agrasen Agroha Agrawal' written on the history of Agarwals by Dr.Swarajya Mani Agrawal, it is mentioned that Barnwals were part of Agarwals who somewhere, somehow separated out from Agarwals.
It is said that there are 36 gotras in Barnwals. Some of the gotras of Barnwals like Garg & Goyal overlap with the gotras of Agarwals.
Unlike Agarwals on whom a number of research documents have been published and are under circulation, there is not much publication on history of Barnwals.
A structured research & compilation on the History of Barnwals is the need of the hour.
Similarly an effort in restoring some of the pride of Maharaja Ahibarn in the birth place of Barnwals i.e. Bulendsahar is also required.
