Virji Vora

Virji Vora was the Merchant Prince of Surat who dominated trade and moneylending in the Mughal Empire in the first half of the seventeenth century. He established monopoly on goods and capital and had compelled even the European trader to meet his terms.

Virji Vora Kendrua descended from a Jain family in Surat, India, a chief trading port of the wealthy Mughal Empire. He was a member of the Sthanakvasi sect of Jainism and during his life became a leader of that sect. His activities were first recorded on August 25, 1619, when he engaged in commercial transactions with English merchants in Surat. By that time he already owned a fleet of trading ships, and by 1663 his wealth was estimated at 8 million silver rupees, the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in 2010.

During his life Surat was a gateway to the rich East Indies trade with established bases of the Dutch, French, and British East India Companies. Merchants of these companies described Virji Vora as a skilled and aggressive businessman.

He was involved in both import and export, and dealt in vast quantities of opium, cotton, spices, coral, pepper, quicksilver, tea, turmeric, cloves, ivory, lead, silver, gold, pearls, and gems. His representatives were present in trading routes throughout the Mughal Empire in cities such as Agra, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Broach, Burhanpur, and Golconda; in the trading bazaars of Arabia; and in the ports of Decca, Malabar, and Malay.

Virji Vora established a monopoly in supplying pepper to the English and had also dominated the field of moneylending. The Europeans lacked ready access to capital in the Indian Ocean trade and were compelled to borrow from Virji Vora at rates from 7 to 18 percent per year, with an additional 3 percent charged for money changing.

Virji Vora cared for the Jain community, distributed grain in the famine of 1630-1632, and donated money to Jain monasteries and temples. Around 1670 he either died or retired to a Jain monastery.