SOHINI SWIMS TO MEET HER LOVER MAHIWAL, INDIA, UNIARA, 18TH CENTURY

This miniature depicts the central event of the popular and tragic romance of Sohini and Mahiwal. Mahiwal, a Bukharan trader, and Sohini, a potter's daughter from the Punjab, fell in love, but their union was forbade as Mahiwal was an outsider. Sohini was married to another man, but Mahiwal stayed on, herding the family's cattle and later living as a hermit by the river bank. Every night Sohini would swim across the river to meet Mahiwal, using an upturned pot to float. When their meetings became known, Sohini's sister-in-law decided to end the gossip and dishonour, and replaced the fired pot that Sohini normally used with an un-fired clay pot. Thus, when she swam across the river that night the pot dissolved and Sohini was drowned. Mahiwal jumped in to save her but he too drowned.