සුනිල් ශාන්ත
42 songs performed · 27 compositions · 8 lyrics written
Sunil Santha (also spelled Sunil Shantha), සුනිල් සාන්ත, was a Sri Lankan singer, composer, and lyricist widely regarded as a founder of a distinctly Sinhala song tradition in the 1940s and 1950s. Born Baddaliyanage Don Joseph John on 14 April 1915 in Ja-Ela and died on 11 April 1981, he is remembered for early radio recordings such as Olu Pipila and for refusing to bend Sinhala music to imported Hindustani and Tamil film conventions.
Orphaned young and raised by his grandmother, he left teaching in 1940 to study music abroad. He attended Shantiniketan in India and then the Bhatkhande Music Institute in Lucknow, where he earned the title of Sangeetha Visharada in 1944. On returning to Ceylon he set aside his given English name and took the name Sunil Santha, a choice that mirrored his lifelong project of grounding song in the Sinhala language and idiom.
From 1946 onward Sunil Santha produced a run of songs that shaped popular taste. Olu Pipila (ඕලු පිපීලා) is often cited as the first song recorded at Radio Ceylon, and on Lyrics-lk it appears both as Olu Pipila and in the fuller form Olu Pipila Wila Lela Denawa. He worked closely with lyricists and scholars of the Sinhala revival, including Kumaratunga Munidasa, Arisen Ahubudu, and Father Marcelline Jayakody, and shared the early studio era with the young W. D. Amaradeva.
In 1952 Sunil Santha was effectively pushed out of Radio Ceylon after he refused to sit a grading audition before the visiting Indian musicologist S. N. Ratanjankar, objecting that an Indian examiner should not certify Sinhala singers. The episode cost him his radio standing but became part of his reputation as an artist who would not compromise.
His catalogue favours nature imagery, devotion, and the rural Sinhala landscape, set to melodies that feel folk-rooted rather than borrowed. He also composed for cinema, scoring Lester James Peries’ landmark films Rekava (1956) and Sandesaya (1960). Several of the songs most associated with him are hosted here:
Sunil Santha is often called a father of modern Sinhala music for insisting that Sinhala song could stand on its own language and sensibility. The records released late in and after his life, including Sunil Gee (1977), kept his work in circulation, and his songs remain staples for Sri Lankan listeners and the diaspora. Searchers find him under both Sunil Santha and Sunil Shantha, and Lyrics-lk presents his songs with Sinhala lyrics, transliteration, and English translation in one place.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Sunil Santha.