[14] Rājasthān, i. p. 491.
[15] Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarāt, p. 80.
[16] The common brass drinking-vessel.
[17] Sir H. H. Risley’s Peoples of India, p. 127, and Appendix I. p. 8.
[18] Punjab Census Report (1881), p. 291.
[19] Nāgpur Settlement Report (1900), para. 54.
[20] Nāgpur Settlement Report (1900), para. 54.
Bania, Agarwāla
Bania, Agarwāla, Agarwāl.—This is generally considered to be the highest and most important subdivision of the Banias. They numbered about 25,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being principally found in Jubbulpore and Nāgpur. The name is probably derived from Agroha, a small town in the Hissār District of the Punjab, which was formerly of some commercial importance. Buchanan records that when any firm failed in the city each of the others contributed a brick and five rupees, which formed a stock sufficient for the merchant to recommence trade with advantage. The Agarwālas trace their descent from a Rāja Agar Sen, whose seventeen sons married the seventeen daughters of Bāsuki, the king of the Nāgas or snakes. Elliot considers that the snakes were really the Scythian or barbarian immigrants, the Yueh-chi or Kushāns, from whom several of the Rājpāt clans as the Tāk, Haihāyas and others, who also have the legend of snake ancestry, were probably derived. Elliot also remarks that Rāja Agar Sen, being a king, must have been a Kshatriya, and thus according to the legend the Agarwālas would have Rājpūt ancestry on both sides. Their appearance, Mr. Crooke states, indicates good race and breeding, and would lend colour to the theory of a Rājpūt origin. Rāja Agar Sen is said to have ruled over both Agra and Agroha, and it seems possible that the name of the Agarwālas may also be connected with Agra, which is a much more important place than Agroha. The country round Agra and Delhi is their home, and the shrine of the tutelary goddess of some of the Agarwālas in the Central Provinces is near Delhi. The memory of the Nāga princess who was their ancestor is still, Sir H. Risley states, held in honour by the Agarwālas, and they say, ‘Our mother’s house is of the race of the snake.’[1] No Agarwāla, whether Hindu or Jain, will kill or molest a snake, and the Vaishnava Agarwālas of Delhi paint pictures of snakes on either side of the outside doors of their houses, and make offerings of fruit and flowers before them.