In the 18th century, Shwetambar Jain businessmen from Rajasthan, known as Sheherwalis (an “urban” mercantile Jain community, whose clan histories and temple-trust networks took shape in, and eventually helped shape, some of eastern India’s most cosmopolitan trading towns), migrated to Murshidabad. They built empires in textiles and banking, eventually becoming zamindars (landowners). The Sheherwalis adapted to prevailing cultural influences (Mughal, British, Bengali, and European) creating their own unique culture.
At its height, the community ran to around a hundred households, clustered around a handful of prominent trading-and-temple families, with names like the Dugars, Dudhorias, Nahars, Nowlakhas (and others remembered locally) still echoing across the old kothis and temple trusts.
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