Wasthuwa Illana Kashyapa Puthune

Kashyapa, my son, you who demand my treasure, why do you wound my heart?
Like my own two eyes you both were, you and Mugalan, here in your father the king’s shelter.

Look, my elder son, at this sheet of water making the fields and gardens rich.
The treasure I have, the wealth I have, is this body of blue water.

Kashyapa, my son, you who demand my treasure, why do you wound my heart?
Like my own two eyes you both were, you and Mugalan, here in your father the king’s shelter.

To stand me up, to wall me in with earth and kill me, who, my son, turned your heart against me?
When I am dead and gone, my son, lay me to rest by the bund of the Kalawewa tank.
Guard my Kalawewa always, by the Avukana stone Buddha, I beg you.

Kashyapa, my son, you who demand my treasure, why do you wound my heart?
Like my own two eyes you both were, you and Mugalan, here in your father the king’s shelter.

This song retells one of the saddest moments in Sri Lankan history, the death of King Dhatusena, the ruler who built the great Kalawewa reservoir in the fifth century. The whole song is the old king speaking to his son Kashyapa, and that is who the “you” is throughout. Kashyapa has seized the throne and is demanding that his father hand over his hidden riches. The king’s reply is the heart of the song.

When the king asks why his son is wounding his heart, the pain is not about losing gold, it is about a son turning on his father. He reminds Kashyapa that both his boys, Kashyapa and his brother Mugalan, were once like his own two eyes, raised safely in his shadow as their king and father. That line carries the whole tragedy in a single image, two sons he loved equally, and now one of them has come for his life.

The famous turn comes when the king is asked for his treasure. He takes Kashyapa to the Kalawewa, the huge tank he built to water the dry-zone fields, and tells him plainly that this sheet of blue water is the only wealth he has. In old Sri Lanka a tank like this was true treasure, it turned dry land into green paddy and fed thousands of people, so the king is saying his real fortune is not gold but the life he gave to the land. The “nil diya kanda,” the body of blue water, is what he is proud of, not a buried hoard.

The last verse is the king facing his own murder. History says Kashyapa had his father walled up alive with earth, and the song gives Dhatusena his final words. He does not curse his son. He only asks to be buried by the bund of his beloved Kalawewa, near the great Avukana stone Buddha, and begs Kashyapa to protect the tank forever. That is what stays with you, a dying father whose last thought is not revenge but the reservoir he built and the land it keeps alive. The song turns a brutal palace murder into something tender and lasting, the love of a king for his people and his country, carried in a single body of water.