Muni Siripa Lyrics by Amaradeva

Kissing the Buddha’s sacred footprint,
in the land of Samanala mountain,
this gentle breeze that comes,
rocks my child to sleep.

In the hour of falling, of dying,
on this national field of battle,
in the hour of falling, of dying,
on this national field of battle,

know, my son, that you are being cradled
in the hands of the beautiful gods.

The sun of freedom is rising,
the wild flowers are opening,
Mother Lanka is smiling,
my child is being rocked to sleep.

Kissing the Buddha’s sacred footprint,
in the land of Samanala mountain,
this gentle breeze that comes,
rocks my child to sleep.

Keppetipola, full of tenderness,
who fought fierce as a giant,
Keppetipola, full of tenderness,
who fought fierce as a giant,

the way he showed his wondrous valour,
may it grow sweet in you, my son.

Let the nation be a golden palace,
let the faith be a lamp of jewels,
and to guard them here in this world,
if you can do it, my son, let it be you.

Kissing the Buddha’s sacred footprint,
in the land of Samanala mountain,
this gentle breeze that comes,
rocks my child to sleep.

This is a lullaby, but not an ordinary one. It is the mother country herself, Sri Lanka, singing over the cradle of her child, and the cradle she rocks is the whole island. The breeze that lulls the baby to sleep is the wind that drifts down from Samanala Kanda, the mountain we also call Sri Pada or Adam’s Peak, where the Buddha’s sacred footprint is enshrined. So from the very first line the child is being rocked not by a person but by the land itself, watched over by the holiest place on it.

The song moves between tenderness and a quiet kind of duty. The mother sings that even on the battlefield, in the moment a soldier falls and dies for the country, he is not really alone or lost. He is being cradled in the hands of the beautiful gods, the way a mother cradles a sleeping child. Saman, the guardian deity of Sri Pada, watches over both the mountain and the people, and that is the comfort she presses into her baby’s ear: to give your life for this land is to be gathered up gently, not abandoned. Then the picture brightens. The sun of freedom rises, the wild flowers open, and Mother Lanka smiles. The baby sleeps under the promise of a free dawn.

The middle verse reaches into real history. Keppetipola Disawe was a chief who turned against the British and led the great Uva-Wellassa uprising of 1818, and he was executed for it; in Sinhala memory he stands as the model of patriotic courage. The mother calls him senehisuru, full of tenderness, and yet says he fought as fiercely as a giant. She holds him up to her son as the example to carry forward, asking that the same wondrous valour grow sweet and natural in the child as he becomes a man. The two images of the closing verse are deliberately religious and royal at once: the nation imagined as a golden palace, the faith as a lamp set with jewels. These are the two treasures, country and Buddhism, that the song asks the next generation to keep lit.

What you are left holding is the heart of an old idea of Sri Lankan identity, where love of country and devotion to the Buddha’s teaching sit side by side, passed from mother to child in the oldest, softest form we have, a cradle song. The baby simply sleeps. The mother, singing, is really asking him to grow up brave enough to protect everything she is laying him down to rest upon.