Mahajan
Topic: Mughal Agrarian Society and Economy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Through the Eyes of Travellers"
Meaning
In Mughal times, a mahajan was a body of merchants in western India. Its members were bound together by caste and by family or community ties. Each mahajan had a chief called the sheth. In big trading cities, the chief of the whole merchant community, the nagarsheth, spoke for all the mahajans together. These bodies show how organised and strong the merchant class was.
Example
In 17th-century Ahmedabad, several mahajans each had their own sheth. All of them were represented before the authorities by the city's nagarsheth.
Don't confuse with
- Mahajan as moneylender: in later and everyday use, "mahajan" often means a village moneylender. That is a single person, not a merchant body.
- Nagarsheth: the head of the whole merchant community of a city, not of one mahajan.
Related concepts
- Flow of silver into India
- Silver rupya
- Hundi
- Banjaras
- Nagarsheth
- Urbanisation in Mughal India
- Urban professional classes
- Manzil-abadi
- Sipah-abadi
- Mulk-abadi