Sohni was a potter's daughter at Gujrat on the Chenab. Izzat Baig, a trader from Bukhara, stayed, took work herding buffalo for her family and was called Mahiwal for it. She was married off. He lived across the river.
She swam to him at night on a baked earthen pot. Her sister-in-law replaced the baked pot with an unbaked one. It dissolved in the water and she drowned. He went in after her.
Fazal Shah's version is the best known. Hashim Shah also wrote one.
The story is fixed to a specific river at a specific town, and the Chenab in Punjabi poetry is the river of drowned lovers because of it.
A shrine said to be theirs stands at Shahdadpur in Sindh, downstream, where the bodies are held to have been recovered. Gujrat claims the story and Sindh holds the grave.
The qissa turns on the substitution of an unbaked pot for the baked one. The pot dissolves in the water and both drown, and the story ends without any reconciliation of the families.
Izzat Baig is remembered as Mahiwal because he took work as a buffalo herd to stay near her. The name means the one with the buffaloes.
Gujrat district's pottery, the reason for her family's trade in the story, was a real industry and the town is known for it still.