A variant spelling of bania; a Hindu merchant or trader, historically used in English accounts of India during the colonial period.
From Hindi 'baniyā,' this is an anglicized variant spelling that was common in 18th and 19th-century English colonial writings about India.
Colonial English texts show how words from Indian languages were spelled in multiple ways—'banian,' 'banya,' 'baniya'—because there was no standardized transliteration system yet!
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