The Karan Kayashtra of India

The Karan Kayashtra of India, numbering approximately 105,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are a Kayastha subgroup of Odisha, West Bengal, and Bihar whose name derives from karanik, meaning scribe, their traditional occupation. Agriculture is now their main livelihood in Odisha, supplemented by government service elsewhere. They mostly adhere to Hinduism and Bengali is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: Kayashtra, Karan

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: South Asian Peoples
Country: India
People Cluster: Kayastha
Primary Language(s): Bengali (ben)
Primary Religion(s): Hinduism
Population: 105,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG041434
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Karan Kayashtra of India

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Hinduism
Religious Affiliation: Hinduism

100%
%
Hinduism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bengali
Language Family: Indo-European

100%
%
Bengali Speakers

Media Resources in Bengali:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film
MagdalenaView Film
The SaviorView Film

5 films

Bible Resources in Bengali:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
Common Language Version✓✓✓
Mussolmani✓✓
Re-edit Bangla Version✓✓

3 entries

Or check out the Bengali bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Karan Kayashtra are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Karan Kayashtra:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Pray specifically for the Karan Kayashtra of India

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
read1 John 3:8

Pray for those living in darkness to recognize the destructive power of sin and the victory Christ has won over it.

Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
readGenesis 2:7

Pray that Christians will be able to share the hope of Christ with suffering people and that He will breathe new life into their souls.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
readEphesians 2:4-5

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will remember God's mercy and grace and experience joy as they walk in new life with Christ.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
readMark 5:20

Pray that God will bring people who appear beyond hope to faith in Jesus and that they will then go and tell others of the marvelous things He has done.

Kayastha Karan (Bengali) Across Countries (ROP3 - 117979) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

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