Barnwal
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Barnwal (Hindi: बर्नवाल), also spelt as Baranwal or Barnawal, is a community in northern India. Traditionally, the Baranwals were a trader community.
[edit] Legend
According to the legend, the Barnwal community was started by King Ahivarn, whose ancestors had moved to a place called Ahar in North India. Ahivaran renamed the Ahar kingdom after himself as "Varn-sahar" (identified with modern Bulandshahar in present day Western UP). He called his subjects as Varnwal, a term that distorted to Barnwal over the years.
The city of BulandShahar (literal meaning - High City, due to being situated at a high place) derives its name from the fort of Barnwals located at a very high mound/ hillock. The old name 'Baran' can be still be traced in the old Government documents.
Ahivaran was a Suryavanshi Kshatriya who was the 21st descendant of Empror Mandhata, the ruler of Ayodhya. According to the mythological Mahalakshmi Vrat Katha, Ahivarn, the son of King Parmaal, and the King Agrasen (son of King Vallabh) belonged to the same lineage. According to a treatise called Jaati Bhaskar, Mandhata had two sons, Gunadhi and Mohan. Parmaal was the descendant of Gunadhi, while Vallabh was the descendant of Mohan.
According to the book Agrasen Agroha Agrawal, written by Dr. Swarajya Mani Agrawal, the Barnwals were a part of the Agrawal community, but later separated out.
It is said that there are 36 gotras in Barnwals. Some of the gotras of Barnwals like Garg and Goyal overlap with the gotras of Agarwals though other gotras like Kashyap, Maurya etc are specific to Barnwals.
Another forthright opinion comes from Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan, the great historian and wanderer of India, in his pathbreaking book, 'Volga se Ganga Tak', in which he has commented that many communities, including Agarwals & Baranwals who have become part of the Vaishya class of the Hindu religion, were actually 'Yaudheya'. 'Yaudheyas' were militant communities, mainly from modern western UP, Haryana and some parts of Rajasthan, who were the founders of most ancient Republics of world. It is informed that these Republics were repeatedly persecuted by bigger Kings and Emperors from across the Indus, who felt that such Republics were posing danger to their overall regional dominance. After repeated persecution by the Muslim rulers of Delhi, all these Yaudheya communities dispersed to Eastern India and due to their knowledge of western Indian routes, they took up the trading from western India including Modern Pakistan and even from Afghanistan and other countries. These circumstances transformed these communities from 'Yaudheya' to 'Vaishya'.
It is said that the last blow to the Barnwal community was the supposed destruction of the Varn-sahar or Barn-sahar during an attack by Muhammad Ghori in 1192 CE (some claim by Muhammad Tughlak of Delhi).[citation needed] After the destruction of the fort, some of the people of Barn-sahar in order to save their life converted to Muslim religion and took the surname 'Burni muslims'while most of the community dispersed to different parts of India mostly along the Gangentic plains of Eastern India and took up trade as their means of livelyhood.
Some the Barnwals who were Zamindars and had received the title of Rai Bahadur during the British rule in India, adopted the Singh surname. Many Barnwals have adopted generic surnames such as Lal, Gupta, Prasad, Anand, Prakash & the ubiquitous Kumar in order to socialize and intermingle with the society. Many Barnwals married into other merchant communities such as Agrawals and Jains. Now a days the current generation is moving to private jobs mostly in IT fields and various women are now opting for service oppourtunities.Mostly barnwals are based in the northern india like UP,Bihar,jharkahnd, west bengal and some other parts of india.
