Virji Vora

Virji Vora
Bornc. 1590
Diedc. 1670s
Surat, Gujarat Subah, Mughal Empire
(modern-day Gujarat, India)
Other namesBaharji Bohra
Occupation(s)Wholesale trading and money-lending
Years active1619-1670
Known forcredit supplier and customer of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company

Virji Vora[a] (c. 1590–c. 1670s) was an Indian merchant from Surat during the Mughal era. The East India Company Factory Records describe him as the richest merchant in the world at the time.[2][3] According to English records, his personal worth is estimated to be worth 8 million rupees, a substantial amount of money at the time.[4] He has been variously described as a "merchant prince,"[1] and a "plutocrat."[5]

The business activities of Virji Vora included wholesale trading, money lending, and banking. He established a monopoly over certain imports in Surat, and dealt with a wide range of commodities including spices, bullion, coral, ivory, lead, and opium. He was a major credit supplier and customer of the British East India Company[1] and the Dutch East India Company.[6]

  1. ^ a b c Balkrishna Govind Gokhale (1979). "VII. The Merchant Prince Virji Vora". Surat In The Seventeenth Century. Popular Prakashan. pp. 137–146. ISBN 978-81-7154-220-8. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  2. ^ John F. Richards, ed. (1996). The Mughal Empire. New Cambridge history of India (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-521-56603-2. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
  3. ^ James Douglas (1883). A book of Bombay. Bombay Gazette Steam Press. p. 133. OCLC 12169382. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  4. ^ Michael Naylor Pearson (1976). Merchants and rulers in Gujarat (illustrated ed.). University of California Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-520-02809-8.
  5. ^ Marguerite Eyer Wilbur (1950). The East India Company: And the British Empire in the Far East. Stanford University Press. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-8047-2864-5. OCLC 255101136. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
  6. ^ R. J. Barendse (2002). The Arabian seas: the Indian Ocean world of the seventeenth century (illustrated ed.). M.E. Sharpe. p. 412. ISBN 978-0-7656-0729-4.


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