Shri Nathji would
narrate two parables of the legendary lovers Sohini and Mahiwal. Devotion to
God must be perfect; only then can it be real. To illustrate this, Shri Nathji used
to tell the legendary story of the lovers–Sohni and Mahiwal. Theirs was not an
ordinary love; it had the element of the divine in it. Sohni would cross the
dark and dangerous waters of a river each night to reach her beloved, Mahiwal,
on the other shore. She would carry an earthenware pot, a matka-with her, to
help her float across the river. Her jealous sister-in-law replaced the matka
with one made of weak clay. Sohni went across the river using this matka. In
the middle of the river, she saw the vision of her beloved, Mahiwal. She saw
the mole on his face. And it struck her that the mole should not have been
there. At that very instant, the matka sank, and with it, Sohni.
The saints and sages
were shaken in their meditation. Why did real love sink? Was it not God’s
injustice? And the revelation was flashed across to them: Real Love had ceased
to exist when Sohni saw the imperfection of the mole in her lover! Real love
saw only perfection. The lane of love was a difficult one. It would not brook
any insufficiency– not even of the width of a hair. A devotee had to see perfection
in God. It was only thus that he could retain a lasting relationship with Him.
Whenever Shri Nathji
gave examples of the lover and the beloved–like that of Yusuf and Zulekha, or Laila
and Majnu, or Shereen and Farhaad–he would be referring to Divine Love.
"It was God that
put the divine beauty into Laila, which attracted the heart of Majnu,"
he would say.
"The difference
between ordinary love and divine love is that ordinary love takes one to a
consciousness of the body and the senses, while divine love takes one above
such a consciousness. Ordinary love is physical in nature, divine love
transcends the physical. It is spiritual in nature. It is like the love between
Radha and Krishna."
Shri Nathji would
give the following definition of a genuine lover in Persian:
"Aashikee raa shash
nishaan baashad ai pissar
Aahe sardo rang zardo
chashm tar,.
There are six signs
of Love, O Son!
Cold sighs, a
paleness of the face and eyes wet with tears;
Gar turaa pursand
cheh deegar kudaam
Kam khuro, kam
guftano guftam haraam."
And if thou ask for
the other three–
These are a giving up
of food and talk,
And a giving up of
sleep!
Shri Nathji would
narrate another parable of the legendary Sohni going her way, lost in the
thought of her beloved, Mahiwal. Along her path there was a Maulvi offering
namaaz –prayers to God. Sohni was so completely absorbed in the thought of
Mahiwal that she did not see the Maulvi and passed close to him. The Maulvi was
at once enraged. The woman had disturbed him when he was in communion with God.
He got up and shouted angrily at Sohni, telling her of the great sin she had
committed by breaking his communion with God.
He said to her: “ I
was absorbed in the thought of Allah but you passed close to me and disrupted
my prayers. Woman you are surely accursed and deserve the fires of hell!”
Sohni was very
apologetic and begged for forgiveness from the Maulvi. She said to him:
“ Maulvi Sahib,
please forgive me for disturbing your prayers. But the fact is that I was so
absorbed in the thought of my beloved that I did not even see you.”
But the Maulvi would
not be placated. He continued shouting at her much to her great distress. Just
then a thought occurred to Sohni and she said to him: “Maulvi Sahib, I was so
absorbed in the thought of my beloved that I failed to notice you along my
path– but, tell me, was your absorption in God so weak that you noticed me?”
The Maulvi was taken
aback. He realized then how correctly the woman had spoken. He lacked the
concentration and love for God which the woman had for her beloved. His was a
life of mere preaching and moralizing, but the life of a woman was one of
steadfastness and real devotion to the object of her love.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sohni Mahiwal is a tragic love story. Here,
the heroine Sohni, unhappily married to a man whom she despises, swims every
night across the river where her beloved Mehar grazes buffaloes. One night her
sister-in-law replaces the earthenware pot, which she uses to keep afloat in
water, with a vessel of unbaked clay, which dissolves in water and she dies in
the whirling waves of the river.
Around the 18th
century (late Mughal period), the beautiful girl Sohni was born to a potter
named Tulla They were from the Kumhar caste, and lived in the town of Gujrat
now in Pakistan Punjab (Not to be confused with the state of Gujrat in India.)
At the time, Gujrat, on the river Chenab, was a caravanserai on the trade route
between Bukhara and Delhi.
Shahzada Izzat Baig,
a rich trader from Bukhara (Uzbekistan), came to Punjab on business and halted
in the town of Gujrat. Here he saw Sohni at her shop selling earthenware and
was completely smitten. The song goes that instead of looking after the
'mohars' (gold coins) in his pockets, he roamed around with his pocket full of
love. Just to get a glimpse of Sohni, he would end up buying all the water pitchers and mugs everyday. Sohni
too lost her heart to Izzat Baig. Instead of making floral designs on
earthenware, she started building castles of love in her dreams. Instead of
returning to Bukhara with his caravan, the noble-born Izzat Baig took up the
job of a servant in the house of Tulla, Sohni's father. He would even take
their buffaloes for grazing. Soon, he came to be known as Mehar or
"Mahiwal" (buffalo herder).
When the people got
to know about the love of Sohni and Mahiwal, there was a commotion within the
Kumhar community.It was not acceptable that a daughter from this community
would marry an outsider, so her parents immediately arranged her marriage with
another potter. Suddenly, one day the "barat" (marriage party) of
that potter arrived at Sohini's house. Sohni felt helpless and lost. She was
sent off to the husband's house. Izzat Baig renounced the world and started
living like a faqir (hermit). He eventually moved to a small hut across the
river from Sohni's new home. The earth of Sohni’s land was like a shrine for
him. He had forgotten his own land, his own people and his world.
In the dark of night the
lovers would meet by the river. Izzat would come to riverside and sohni would
come to meet him sitting in an inverted hard baked pitcher (inverted so that it
would not sink) . He would regularly catch a fish and bring it for her. It is
said that once, when due to high tide he could not catch a fish, Mahiwal cut a
piece of his thigh and roasted it. Sohni didn't realise this first but then she
said izzat that this fish tastes different and keep her hand on his thigh then
she realised it was a piece of his thigh and cried.
Meanwhile, rumours of
their romantic rendezvous spread. One day Sohni’s sister-in-law followed her
and saw the hiding place where Sohni used to keep her earthenware pitcher
inside the bushes. The next day, the sister-in-law removed the hard baked
pitcher and replaced it with an unbaked one. That night, when Sohni tried to
cross the river with the help of the pitcher, it dissolved in the water and
Sohni drowned. From the other side of the river, Mahiwal saw Sohni drowning and
jumped into the river and drowned as well.Thus their union was effected.
Legends has it, that
the bodies of Sohni and Mahiwal or Mehar flowed down stream and were recovered
from the River Indus near Shahdadpur, Sindh, some 75 km far from Hyderabad,
Pakistan. Sohni's tomb is to be located in Shahdadpur. A photo of that is given
here.
