INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, CIRCA 1800

The story of Sohni and Mahival is one of the most popular ill-fated romances from the Punjab region, relating the complicated love affair between Sohni, the heroine from the Kumhar, or potter caste, and her lover Mahival. Mahival, a merchant from Bukhara, had swiftly fallen for Sohni while passing through her village on a caravan. Mahival decides to stay in Sohni's village, making frequent stops at her family's pottery shop, describing her beauty so eloquently: that her face was like the moon, eyes like an innocent deer, and eyelashes like arrows that pierce his heart. Learning of their forbidden love, Sohni’s family arranged her to marry another potter from their village; yet, in defiance of her marriage, every night, Sohni would visit Mahival, using one of her pots to stay afloat as she traveled across the river to where he grazed his buffalo. Skeptical of her whereabouts every night, Sohni’s sister-in-law followed her to the river on one occasion and replaced her pot with one unfired. When Sohni next went to see Mahival, the jar dissolved midstream. Mahival jumps in to save her as she was drowning in the water, and tragically, they drown together.
Further examples and an extensive analysis of the subject are provided by Stephen Markel in "Drowning in Love’s Passion: Illustrations of the Romance of Sohni and Mahinwal," in A Pot-Pourri of Indian Art, P. Pal (editor), Mumbai, 1988, pp. 99-114