Castes and Tribes of Southern India/Lādar

by Edgar Thurston

Lādar. — It is noted, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, that "the Lādars are a class of general merchants, found chiefly in the cities, where they supply all kinds of stores, glass-ware, etc." I gather^[1] that the "Lād or Suryavaunshi Vānis say that they are the children of Surya, the sun. They are said to have come from Benares to Maisur under pressure of famine about 700 years ago. But their caste name seems to show that their former settlement was not in Benares, but in South Gujarāt or Lāt Desh. They are a branch of the Lād community of Maisur, with whom they have social intercourse. They teach their boys to read and write Kanarese, and succeed as traders in grain, cloth, and groceries."

1. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, XV, Part I, 1883.