Banians acted as intermediaries for European merchants in Bengal. They were highly influential in the eighteenth century but their importance waned thereafter. This article reexamines their role in the nineteenth century and argues that their importance persisted but evolved in response to changes in the Bengal economy and issues of contracting and governance. It shows that the banians remained a nexus between the local and global economies, facilitating a bidirectional transfer of knowledge. They enabled the development of innovative Indian business forms and contributed to the emergence of a diverse ecology of organizational forms and ownership in Bengal at the end of the nineteenth century.

巴尼亚人在孟加拉国担任欧洲商人的中介。它们在18世纪极具影响力，但其重要性在此后逐渐减弱。本文重新审视了它们在19世纪的作用，并认为它们的重要性持续存在，但随着孟加拉经济的变化以及契约与治理问题而不断发展。它表明，巴尼亚人仍然是当地和全球经济之间的纽带，促进了知识的双向转移。它们使创新的印度业务形式得以发展，并在19世纪末促成孟加拉国组织形式和所有权多元化生态的出现。