Asati


Asati is a merchant community in Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh.
Asati’s originally hailed from a village near Ayodhya and later shifted to around Tikamgarh. They subsequently migrated throughout Bundelkhand.

History

In some texts the name is given as Asahati or Asaiti.
Navalshah Chanderia, who wrote Vardhamana Purana in 1768 AD at Khataura, included the Asati community among the eleven merchant communities that are partly Jain. Russel and Hiralal in 1916 also mention a minority being Jain.
Brahmachari Sitalprasad, in his introduction to an edition of the Mamala Pahuda wrote that one of his used manuscripts was copied in an Asahati temple in 1624.

Distribution

The census of India, 1891, reported 3,071 Asatis in the British ruled districts, of which 450 were Jain. They were mainly present in Jabalpur, Damoh and Sagar, where a significant fraction were Jain. Smaller number were present in Bhandara, Gondia, Nagpur and Chhindwara, where all of them were Vaishnava.
The community celebrates an annual Asati Diwas.

Notable figures

, one of the foundational figures of the modern North-Indian Digambar intellectual tradition during early 20th century was born into an Asati family.