Oswal

The Oswal (sometimes spelled Oshwal or Osval) are a Śvetāmbara Jain merchant community with origins in Osian, a town in the Marwar region of Rajasthan, India. According to research by Colonel James Tod, Osavālas are purely of Rajput origins and they belong to not one, but several different Rajput tribes. The Osavālas origin legend has multiple aspects, all of which include a fierce, meat-eating goddess who becomes pacified by a Jain ascetic, involving the conversion of a king to Jainism. In modern times, there are barely any Osavālas living in Osiyān, but they still regard the Mahavira temple and Sachiya Mata Temple as their "mother temples". They reside in Rajasthan, Malwa, Gujarat, and Kutch.

They were formerly also found in the Tharparkar district of Sindh (pre-partition).

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.