Caravans: Punjabi Khatri Merchants on the Silk RoadCaravans tells the fascinating story of countless Punjabi Khatri merchants who built great business empires through their ingenuity and spirit of adventure. Operating during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, these merchants risked everything and travelled across Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Russia. They used sophisticated techniques to convert a modest amount of merchandise into vast portfolios for trade and moneylending ventures. Caravans challenges the belief that the rising tide of European trade in the Indian Ocean usurped the overland ‘Silk Road’ trade, and demonstrates how thousands of Punjabis created a booming market in Central Asia at precisely this historical moment. |
Contents
Merchants and the State | |
Indian Merchants in Central Asia | |
Indian Textiles | |
The Life and Death of a Diaspora | |
Conclusion | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Afghan Afghanistan agents Ahmad Akbar al-Din Amirate Asian Astrakhan Babur Balkh Barani Bukhara capital caravan traders caravanserais Central Asia Central Asian horses Central Asian markets cloth commercial activities commercial network cotton textiles Delhi Sultanate diaspora Durrani dynasty early modern economic eighteenth century enslaved established Eurasian exchange export family firms Ferghana firm directors firm’s French traveller Ghaznavid Ghilzai Hindu Kush Hindu merchants hundi Indian commercial Indian communities Indian markets Indian merchants Indian slaves Indian textiles Inner Asian Iran Isfahan Islamic Jenkinson Kabul Khanate Khatris Khoqand large numbers loans locations Marwari merchandise military moneylending Mughal Empire Multani and Shikarpuri Multani firms Multanis Muslim Nadir Shah nineteenth century nomads number of Indian overland Persia policies population Powinda produced Punjab Qandahar region rulers Russian colonial Safavid Samarqand Scott Levi seventeenth century Shah’s Shibanid sixteenth century sources steppe subcontinent Tashkent thousands trade routes trade with Central trans-regional trade transported Uzbek ventures wealth