Agrawal, Agarwal, Agerwal, Agrawala, Agarwala, Agarwalla, Aggarwal, Agarawal or Agarawala is a Hindu Bania community
“The Agrawals are descendent from kshatriya king Maharaja Agrasen of the Solar Dynasty. Literally, Agrawal means the "children of Agrasen" or the "people of Agroha", a city in ancient Kuru Panchala, near Hisar in Haryana said to be founded by Agrasen”
Agrawal surname was adopted by the 18 children of Maharaja Agrasen. (Agroha + Wal(balak in punjabi)). Maharaja Agrasen come from a town in North Haryana called “Agroha” in Hisar district earlier in Punjab Province during British Rule.
Maharaja Agrasen was a very compassionate ruler and often disliked killing animals as sacrifice in Yagna and soldiers of other kingdoms in small wars. During his 18th Yagna he decided that he would not kill any animal or soldier anymore. He stopped the Yagna and told the priest that he couldn't slaughter the sacrifice animal. The priest warned him that without so, the havan could not be complete. In response, the Maharaja decided to renounce the Kshatriya Dharma and adopted Vanik Dharma. He married 17 Nagas. After his death, the kingdom was divided among the 18 Gotras of the Agarwals like “Bansal”, “Goyal”, “Kansal” and so on. Business and trading went on with full vigour making the people in the region very rich and prosperous. Later on, Nomadic herds of Huns, Sythians and Greeks started arriving and protecting the kingdom became tougher.
Around 1000 years ago : Muslim Invaders raided the entire city forcing the people of Agroha to flee the area. There was widespread killings, rape, murder and loot.
Mahmud of Ghazni (Persian: محمود غزنوی; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030) was the first independent ruler of the Turkic dynasty of Ghaznavids, ruling from 999 to 1030. At the time of his death, his kingdom had been transformed into an extensive military empire, which extended from northwestern Iran proper to the Punjab in the Indian subcontinent, Khwarazm in Transoxiana, and Makran.
Mahmud Ghazni was among the first Invader and soon all of Haryana and Punjab was completely destroyed.
As far as Agrawals are concerned with they fled to various Northern regions of India. Many to Rajasthan areas under Rajputs who later started calling themselves as Marwadi Agrawals though historically they are not. Since its been at least 12–15 generations of living in Rajasthan, they sometimes are called/known as Marwadis like other business communities of Rajasthan such as Maheshwaris, Porwal etc. Some fled to Tomar Dynasty dominated areas near Mehrauli, Delhi region. Some fled to Jaat dominated areas in modern day South Haryana like Rohtak, Jind and parts of North-Western UP like Meerut, Saharanpur and adopted Kadiboli Hindi. Many migrated further North into parts of Punjab such as Sangrur, Bhatinda, Mohali etc under the Jatt dominated areas, adopted Punjabi language and became Punjabi Agrawals
Under the Mughal Empire, the presence of Agarwals in the entire North India rose as very good traders. The Mughal emperors saw an opportunity to increase trade in various areas of the Indian Subcontinent since they were of the opinion of ruling over India and making it an Islamic Region so they wanted to make it prosperous and for the same recruited loads of Aggarwals/Jains to trade along the entire GT(Grand Trunk) road which was the trading route all the way from Afghanistan -> Lahore -> Delhi. That’s when many many Agarwals migrated to Lahore & Delhi region for business and trading.
18 gotras of Agrawals
Bansal
Goyal
Kuchhal
Kansal
Bindal
Dharan
Singhal
Jindal
Mittal
Tingal
Tayal
Garg
Bhandal
Nangal
Mangal
Airan
Madhukul
Goyan
Conclusion: Agarwals are originally from Haryana and are mostly found in other North-Western areas of India like Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi NCR and Chandigarh.
They are actually Haryanvis but adopted Rajasthani (Marwadi), Punjabi and Hindi.
