Vaishya is one of the four varnas of the Hindu social order.
Hindu religious texts assigned Vaishyas to traditional roles in agriculture and cattle-rearing but over time they came to be landowners, traders and money-lenders. The Vaishyas, along with members of the Brahmin and Kshatriya varnas, claim dvija status ("twice born", a second or spiritual birth) after sacrament of initiation as in Hindu theology. Indian traders were widely credited for the spread of Indian culture to regions as far as southeast Asia.
Historically, Vaishyas have been involved in roles other than their traditional pastoralism, trade and commerce. According to Ram Sharan Sharma, a historian, the Gupta Empire was a Vaishya dynasty that "may have appeared as a reaction against oppressive rulers".
The Vaishya community consist of several jāti or subcastes, notably the Agrahari,Agrawals,Barnwals, Gahois, Kasuadhans, Khandelwals, Lohanas and Maheshwaris of the north; Oswals, Roniaurs, the Arya Vaishyas of Maharahtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Vaishya Vanis of Konkan and Goa, and the Modh Baniyas of the west.
I am the king of nothing
The emperor of emptiness
I don't have a castle
And I don't wear a crown
I recall as a small child
The dreams that I once had
Yes, I recall as a small boy
Those dreams which drove me mad
'cause I once found myself a kingdom
It was not too far away
I once found myself a kingdom
But somehow I let it slip away
So I am the king of nothing
The emperor of emptiness
And I don't have a castle
And I don't have a crown
And I recall as a small child
Those dreams I once had
I recall as a small boy
Those dreams which drove me mad
I once found myself a kingdom
And I thought that it was here to stay
Yes, I once found myself a kingdom
But somehow I let it slip away
So I am the king of nothing
The emperor of emptiness
And I don't have a castle