Armenians in India

History

The earliest documented references to the mutual relationship of Armenians and Indians are found in the Cyropaedia, an ancient Greek work by Xenophon (430 BC – 355 BC). These references indicate that several Armenians traveled to India.

An archive directory (published 1956) in Delhi, India states that an Armenian merchant and diplomat named Thomas of Cana had reached the Malabar Coast in 780 using the overland route.

Ottoman and the Safavid imperial conquests of the Armenian highlands in the 15th century meant that many Armenians dispersed across theses empires, with some eventually reaching North India, which was ruled by the Mughal Empire (Northern India). During the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar, Armenians like Chief Justice Abdul Hai—gained prestige in the empire. While Armenians gained prestige serving as governors and generals elsewhere in the empire, such as Delhi, Lahore, and Bengal, they lived in enclosed colonies and established churches. Armenians worked as merchants, gunsmiths, gunners, priests and mercenaries for some of the Islamic rulers in India, with many noted to have served in the armies of various nawabs in Bengal and Punjab, such as Khojah Petrus Nicholas and Gurgin Khan.

Thomas of Cana was an affluent merchant dealing chiefly in spices and muslins. He was also instrumental in obtaining a decree, inscribed on a copperplate, from the Chera dynasty of the Malabar Coast, which conferred several commercial, social and religious privileges for the Saint Thomas Christians. In current local references, Thomas of Cana is known as "Knayi Thomman" or "Kanaj Tomma" "Thomas the merchant".

Centuries later, an additional incentive for Armenian settlements in India was an Armenian agreement with the British East India Company. A Julfan merchant named Khoja Panos Calendar (Ghandalarian), resident in London at the time, signed the treaty on behalf of the “Armenian Nation” on June 22, 1688. Competing with the Portuguese and the French, the British sought to enhance the Armenian presence in India. The agreement granted special trading privileges to the Armenians, as well as equal rights with British subjects regarding freedom of residence, travel, religion, and unrestricted access to civil offices.

Due to Armenians not having a country of their own, the colonial powers of Europe massively favored trading with Armenians compared to their European counterparts during the age of mercantilism. Most notably, they became an intermediary between the Spaniards and the English. Armenians were known for their honesty. Hence, it made them a great candidate to become international traders. Armenians grew to be very wealthy in India; due to their wealth, they established their own settlements in various Indian cities where they constructed their churches, newspaper publications, and even the first-ever Armenian constitution was written in Madras, India, 1773, by Shahamir Shahamirian, 14 years before the American constitution was written. The Armenian trade network stretched from Manila all the way to Amsterdam but Armenian traders were most successful in India.

Former settlements

Several centuries of presence of Armenians resulted in the emergence of a number of several large and small Armenian settlements in several places in India, including Agra, Surat, Mumbai, Kanpur, Chinsurah, Chandernagore, Calcutta, Saidabad, a suburb of Murshidabad, Chennai, Nagapattinam, Gwalior, Lucknow, and several other locations currently in the Republic of India. Lahore and Dhaka – currently respectively in Pakistan and Bangladesh, – but, earlier part of Undivided India, and Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, also had an Armenian population. There were also many Armenians in Burma and Southeast Asia.

Agra

Akbar (1556–1605), the Mughal emperor, invited Armenians to settle in Agra in the 16th century, and by the middle of the 19th century, Agra had a sizeable Armenian population. By an imperial decree, Armenian merchants were exempted from paying taxes on the merchandise imported and exported by them, and they were also allowed to move around in the areas of the Mughal Empire where entry of foreigners was otherwise prohibited. However, for the Armenians, who were recognized by the emperors for their innovative skills, earned their exceptional status in India. In 1562, an Armenian Church was constructed in Agra.

Chennai

Landmarks of contributions made to the city of Chennai still exist. Coja Petrus Uscan, an Armenian merchant who had amassed a fortune from trade with the Nawab of Arcot, invested a great amount in buildings. The Marmalong Bridge, with many arches across the river Adyar was constructed by him, and a huge sum of maintenance donated to the local authorities. Mesrovb Jacob Seth recorded that Uscan became one of the leading Armenian merchants of eighteenth-century Madras and served on the council of the East India Company. In 1726 he financed the stone stairway leading to the summit of St Thomas' Mount and provided for its upkeep. Besides building rest houses for pilgrims, he built the Chapel of Our Lady of Miracles in Madras. The only reminder of the bygone era is the Armenian Church, Chennai of 1772 at 2/A Armenian Street, Georgetown).The Armenia India legacy in Chennai and Armenian contributions are well documented in the Armenia Virtual Museum.

The surviving Armenian inscriptions around Madras provide further evidence of the community's commercial, religious and family networks. At Little Mount (Madras), a tombstone dated 1663 commemorates Khojah Margar, son of Khojah David, according to the revised reading by Mesrovb J. Seth; an earlier transcription in Epigraphia Indica had reversed the two names. The stone, situated at the foot of the church steps, was described in the Madras inscription catalogue as the oldest known Armenian tombstone in the city.

A more substantial Armenian presence is recorded at St. Thomas Mount. A tablet of 1707 states that Khoja Safar Zacharias caused the porch and doorway of the hill church to be constructed. An accompanying Armenian inscription identifies him as Safar, son of Zachariah, and as a Mahtosey, a title denoting a person who had completed a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The inscription therefore records both Armenian patronage of a major Christian pilgrimage site in Madras and the wider religious mobility of members of the community. The church's own historical record similarly attributes an enlargement of its entrance to Zacharias in 1707.

Another Armenian inscription dated 1707 commemorates Gregory, son of Sarkies, who had been born at Erivan and was described as a merchant in pearls residing temporarily at Madras. His epitaph provides direct evidence of Armenian participation in the precious-stone trade and of migration from the Armenian homeland to the Coromandel Coast. Other eighteenth-century inscriptions record Armenian families whose origins lay in Isfahan and New Julfa. Anna Jacobyan, wife of Sultan David, was recorded as originating from Julfa in Persia and as having died at Madras in 1764. A 1739 inscription associated with Perinas Sultan and members of the Marcar family likewise explicitly identifies Armenian origin and records a death at Pulicat, illustrating connections between Madras and other trading settlements along the Coromandel Coast.

The Arathoon family formed part of the Armenian mercantile community of Madras during the nineteenth century. John Arathoon is recorded among an old Armenian family associated with the city, while the 1857 Madras Almanac lists several Arathoons—including John, Albert and other relatives—as merchants resident in Madras. Arathoon Road in Royapuram (neighbourhood of Madras) preserves the family name, although its precise namesake is uncertain.

In 2025, Indian author Dr. Prashant Madanmohan organized the Indo-Armenian-French Art & Literary Confluence in Chennai, showcasing cultural unity through literature and art, including themes of memory, identity, and the Armenian Genocide.

Machilipatnam

An Armenian settlement was established at Masulipatam during the later eighteenth century as part of a wider movement of Armenians away from Madras. A contemporary Armenian cleric writing in 1784 recorded that warfare, disruption of commerce and severe scarcity had caused the Madras Armenian community to divide, with one group moving to Negapatam and Seringapatam, another settling at Masulipatam and a third remaining in Madras. An Armenian church was subsequently established at Masulipatam, and Armenian families continued to be recorded there into the nineteenth century.

The community's burial ground formed part of St John's Church's cemetery, where eleven Armenian slabs were recorded in the twentieth-century inscription survey. The earliest recorded burials demonstrate continuing links with New Julfa: Jakathoon, wife of Alexander and daughter of Satoor, had been born at Julfa in Isfahan before her death at Masulipatam in 1784. Mary, wife of Mekhithar, was buried there in 1791 under an inscription dated according to the New Julfa or Azarea era, a calendar system then used among Armenians of Persia and India.

Commercial activity is more clearly represented by Bagram Sarkies, an Armenian merchant who had lived at Masulipatam for forty-six years before his death in 1816 and was reported to have been widely esteemed there. His father had held the office of Kalanthar, or collector, at Julfa in Isfahan, linking the family to the administrative and mercantile elite of the Persian-Armenian settlement. Abraham Sarkies, another Armenian merchant resident in Masulipatam, was buried later in the same year, while Cajum Maul Pattum, recorded as an Armenian merchant, died in 1817 at the age of ninety-six.

Later burials illustrate the continuing movement of Armenian merchants between India and western Asia. Elias Johannas was identified as an Armenian merchant travelling through Masulipatam towards Mesopotamia and Persia when his infant daughter Shapery died there in 1831. Joseph Peter, buried in 1835, was explicitly described as an Armenian native of Persia. The inscriptions consequently document Masulipatam not merely as a burial place, but as a node in the commercial network linking Madras, New Julfa, Persia and other ports of the Indian Ocean.

Murshidabad

Aurangzeb (1658–1707), the Mughal emperor, issued a decree which allowed Armenians to form a settlement in Saidabad, a suburb of Murshidabad, then the capital of the subah (province) of Bengal. The imperial decree had also reduced the tax from 5% to 3.5% on two major items traded by them, namely piece goods and raw silk. The decree further stipulated that the estate of deceased Armenians would pass on to the Armenian community. By the middle of the 18th century, Armenians had become a vibrant and active merchant community in Bengal. In 1758, Armenians had built a church in Saidabad's Khan market.

Nagapattinam

Armenian merchants were present at Negapatam by the late eighteenth century, when the port received part of the Armenian population displaced from Madras during the wars of the period. Two Latin-Armenian inscriptions in the Karicop cemetery provide direct evidence of their commercial background. Avied, son of Macarius, who died in 1781, was explicitly described as an Armenian merchant from New Julfa; Demetrius, son of Stephen, who died the following year, was likewise identified as an Armenian merchant. The inscriptions therefore connect the Armenian mercantile presence at Nagapattinam directly with the New Julfa diaspora.

A later and particularly prominent connection was Coramsheer (Hripsimah) Leembruggen, an Armenian woman born at Surat in 1778 who married Robertus Henricus Leembruggen, a Dutch East India Company official associated with Surat. She died at Negapatam in 1833 and was described on her local monument as upright in her dealings, liberal in religious principle and generous in charity. Her philanthropy extended beyond Nagapattinam: a cenotaph was erected to her in the Armenian Church at Madras by the Armenian Orphans' Fund in recognition of her benefactions, and 40,000 rupees was bequeathed to the Armenian poor of Calcutta. Her life therefore linked three important centres of the Armenian diaspora in India—Surat, Madras and Calcutta—while her burial at Nagapattinam reflected the community's continuing presence on the Coromandel Coast.

Surat

Armenian gravestones from the 16th and 17th centuries in Surat, India, reflect the historical presence of the Armenian community in the region. These gravestones, featuring intricate designs and inscriptions, are part of the Armenian cemetery in Surat, alongside the cemeteries of early British and Dutch settlers. Historians suggest Armenians began settling in Surat as early as the 14th century, with a notable increase in the 16th century.

The Armenians in Surat were primarily traders, dealing in jewelry, precious stones, cotton, silk, and other commodities. They engaged in trade with Armenian-owned merchant vessels, exporting goods to various destinations including Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, Venice, and Livorno. Unlike other traders from West Asia, who often traveled alone, Armenian merchants often brought their families with them.

From the 16th century onwards, Armenians formed an important trading community in Surat, the most active Indian port of that period, located on the western coast of India. The port city of Surat used to have regular sea borne to and fro traffic of merchant ships from Basra and Bandar Abbas. Armenians of Surat built two Churches and a cemetery there, and a tombstone (of 1579) in Surat bears Armenian inscriptions. The second Church was built in 1778 and was dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. A manuscript written in the Armenian language in 1678 (currently preserved in Saltikov-Shchedrin Library, St. Petersburg) has an account of a permanent colony of Armenians in Surat.

The British valued the business acumen of the Armenian community and sought their cooperation to secure trading privileges in the Mughal court. Today, the Armenian gravestones in Surat serve as a poignant reminder of the community's significant contributions to the city's history and its enduring commercial and cultural ties with various regions.

Kolkata

The Armenians settled in Chinsurah, near Kolkata, West Bengal, and in 1688 built a church now known as the Armenian Church of the Holy Nazareth This is the second oldest church in Bengal and is still in well preserved on account of the care of the Calcutta Armenian Church Committee.