මොහිදින් බෙග්
54 songs performed
Mohideen Baig (also spelled Mohidin Beg and Mohideen Beig, මොහිදීන් බෙග්, born Kareem Mohideen Baig) was a Sri Lankan playback singer and one of the most influential voices in twentieth-century Sinhala music. Born in India but raised and revered in Ceylon, he is remembered above all for his Buddhist devotional songs and for a film and radio output that ran into the thousands.
Mohideen Baig was born on 5 December 1919 in Salem, in the Tamil Nadu region of India. He moved to Ceylon in the early 1930s, after the death of an elder brother, and made the island his home for the rest of his life. Though he was an Indian-born Muslim, he became one of the most beloved interpreters of Sinhala and Buddhist song, a fact often cited as an example of the cultural harmony of his era.
Baig began recording in the 1930s and rose to prominence as a playback singer in early Sinhala cinema, with work tied to the first generation of the island’s film industry. Over the following decades he recorded for hundreds of films and contributed thousands of songs to radio. He worked alongside leading figures of the period, including the composer and singer Amaradeva and the actress and singer Rukmani Devi.
Mohideen Baig’s reputation rests most heavily on his Buddhist devotional songs, sung with an unusually warm, classically trained voice. His rendering of Obe Ragi Mana (Buddan Saranan Gachchami) remains among the best known religious recordings in Sinhala. The same devotional thread runs through Budunge Ama Dharme and Sakala Sathama Bodu Bathiyen. Alongside these, his romantic and classical songs such as Adara Nadiya Gala, Mal Sugande Dam Sugande and Wella Simbina Rella remain staples of golden-age Sinhala radio.
Mohideen Baig received some of Sri Lanka’s highest cultural honours, including the Kala Suri title and recognition for the sheer scale of his recorded work. He was honoured by the state during the Bandaranaike years and remained a public figure until his death. He died on 4 November 1991 in Colombo. Decades on, listeners still search for the Mohidin Beg and Mohideen Beig spellings of his name when seeking the devotional and golden-age recordings that defined his career.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Mohidin Beg.