Gilem Oba Guna Muhude Lyrics by Amaradeva

I am sunk deep in the ocean of your virtues
I bow to your treasury of the Dhamma
I bow, I bow at your feet
O Lord Buddha, foremost in the three worlds
O Lord Buddha, foremost in the three worlds

Cutting and breaking the darkness of delusion and wrongdoing
Cutting and breaking the darkness of delusion and wrongdoing
You lit the bright lamp
You lit the bright lamp
You brought light to our island of Lanka
O Lord Buddha, foremost in the three worlds
O Lord Buddha, foremost in the three worlds

Like the virtuous, both monks and laypeople
Like the virtuous, both monks and laypeople
gentle as the moon, full of the strength of precepts and goodness
gentle as the moon, full of the strength of precepts and goodness
you showed a mother’s love to every living thing
O Lord Buddha, foremost in the three worlds
O Lord Buddha, foremost in the three worlds

This is a Buddhist devotional song, a hymn of veneration sung in praise of the Buddha. There is no lover and no story here. It is simply a devotee bowing low and putting into words the gratitude and reverence a Sri Lankan Buddhist feels toward the Buddha, addressed throughout as “thilo aga budu samide,” the Lord who stands foremost across the three worlds.

The song opens with the singer saying he is sunk deep in the ocean of the Buddha’s virtues. That image of an ocean (guna mude) is the heart of the whole piece. A person’s good qualities are pictured as a sea so vast you cannot reach its far shore, and the devotee gladly lets himself drown in it. From there the worship grows physical and humble, bowing again and again at the Buddha’s feet, the lowest and most respectful gesture a Sinhala Buddhist can offer.

The middle verse moves from feeling to what the Buddha actually did. He cut through the darkness of moha (delusion) and wrongdoing and “lit the bright lamp,” a familiar Sinhala image where the teaching is a flame that drives back ignorance the way an oil lamp drives back night. The line about bringing light to “Hela Deepa,” the old poetic name for the island of Lanka, points to the deep belief that the Dhamma reached and shaped this country, so the gratitude is not only spiritual but rooted in the island’s own history.

The closing verse decodes the Buddha’s nature through two gentle comparisons a listener here would feel at once. He is “soma,” soft and cool like the moon, calm rather than fierce, full of the quiet strength that comes from sila (moral precepts) and goodness. And the final image is the tenderest of all: he showed “maw prema,” a mother’s love, to every living being. In Sinhala that phrase carries the warmest, most selfless love a person can imagine, and to place it on the Buddha is to say his compassion held all beings the way a mother holds her child. The song leaves the listener with that feeling, gratitude wrapped in calm, the sense of being looked after by a boundless and gentle love.