Sohni swimming across the river to meet Mahival, India, Provincial Mughal, probably Lucknow, circa 1780

The tragic story of Sohni and Mahival is one of Punjab’s favourite folk tales. The heroine Sohni, from the Kumhar or potter caste, had fallen in love with Mahiwal, another potter but an outsider. He lived on the far side of the river Chenab. Sohni’s family arranged her marriage to another potter against her will. Despite this, every night she would swim across the river, using an earthenware pot to stay afloat, to where her beloved Mahival would be tending to his buffaloes. Sohni had also caught the attention of a rich trader from Bukhara, called Izzat Beg, who had fallen in love with her. As he could not be with Sohni, he renounced the world and lived as a fakir (ascetic) on the banks of the river. One evening, Sohni’s suspicious sister-in-law followed her and reported what she saw to Sohni’s mother. The two women decided to replace the earthenware pot Sohni used every night with one made of unbaked clay which dissolved in the water and Sohni drowned. Her beloved, Mahival, jumped into the water to try and save her but drowned as well.

This painting was a popular subject with artists in Delhi and in the provincial Mughal provinces in the eighteenth century. There are two versions from the Johnson Album in the British Library, attributed to Awadh and dated circa 1770-80 (Falk and Archer, 1981, no. 335i-ii, p.158). A more elaborate version from Farrukhabad dated to circa 1770-75 is illustrated in Binney, 1973, no. 105, p.128. A further example in the style of Faqirullah Khan, from Lucknow or Farrukhabad dated to circa 1780, is in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.72.2.1).