Agrahari is a Hindu caste and trading community found in North India. They are also known as Baniya, Vaishya or Gupta.[1]
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The Agrahari belong to Kashyap/Kuchchal Gotra in the Vaish community
People who belong to the Vaish community mostly live in the suburbs from the northern to the western part of India, including some of the population who live in the suburbs in eastern India.
The Agrahari claim to be a descendant of Emperor Agrasen of Agroha, who is credited with the establishment of a kingdom of traders in Agroha,situated in haryana state North India.
Agrasen (Maharaja Agrasen, Emperor Agrasen) was the ancient Indian king of Agroha, a city of traders.
Today Agroha is a very important place in Haryana, Hissar district in India. The Agrahari community are part of the Agrawal community.
Some of the trade families migrated from Agroha to more eastern part of Uttar Pradesh (state in India). They migrated to places like Dist. Fatehpur, Rae-barelli, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Mirjapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, jaunpur,Gorakhpur, Basti,Sant kabir Nagar, Faizabad,Siddharth Nagar etc.. (all cities of Uttar Pradesh) and from here to further east towards Kolkata and now they form quite a population all over India. Some sikh Ahrahari families are also found in Bihar, Jharkhand and Calcutta. There are about 5 million Agraharis' all around India, Nepal and Burma. Agraharis have an All India Executive Body, elections of which are held every three years. It publishes a community monthly magazine called as "Agrahari Samaj Masik". Another monthly magazine is "Sanskar Samuchchay". President of the All India Agrahari community is Shri Sheo Kumar Agrahari of Kolkata who is one of the leading businessman & shri Om Prakash Agrahari of Gorakhpur is General Seceretary. Official Website of the Agrahari community is http://www.agraharivsj.in , http://www.agraharivaishsamaj.com www.agraharisamajvikas.com