The merchant gurus: Sikhism and the development of the medieval Khatri merchant family

Hardip Singh Syan
Additional contact information
Hardip Singh Syan: SOAS, UK

The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2014, vol. 51, issue 3, 303-330

Abstract: In the history of Sikhism it has been firmly established that the Khatri caste played a significant role in the development of the medieval Sikh community. Moreover, the Khatris in the Mughal period grew into a prominent commercial and scribal caste. However it has never been considered why Sikhism, in the context of the Khatri’s medieval commercial expansion, attracted a large Khatri following. In this article I endeavour to explore the appeal of Sikhism to the medieval Khatri community by examining early Sikh thought on trade and commerce. In addition, I attempt to embed the influence of Sikhism within the development of the medieval Khatri merchant family. And consider how the growth of the Khatri merchant network resulted in the spread of Sikhism across Mughal north India.

Keywords: Sikhism; Mughal Empire; Khatri; Bhakti (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464614536016 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indeco:v:51:y:2014:i:3:p:303-330

DOI: 10.1177/0019464614536016

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Indian Economic & Social History Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().