Yamu Sella Katharagam Lyrics by Karunarathna Diwulgane

Let’s go to Sella Kataranam, if you’ll come along
Where the god Kanda Kumara fell in love with Valli, that is Kataragama

Ananda, Saroja, Raman, Anuradha
At the bathing ford on the Menik Ganga (the Gem River), the god’s grace flows
Trading kisses, the river runs on as one, never dividing

Here are the cries of “sadhu, sadhu,” and a feast of music
This is the one time to draw close and enjoy the celebration
Anklets on the feet and bangles on both hands laugh together

This is a pilgrimage song, an invitation to set off for Kataragama, one of the holiest places in Sri Lanka, deep in the southern jungle where Buddhists, Hindus and others all come to worship. The very first line is someone calling out to a companion, “let’s go, if you’re coming with me,” and the warmth of the whole song is in that simple invitation to travel together to a sacred place.

The song roots itself in the old story that gives Kataragama its meaning. The god of the shrine, Kanda Kumara (the warrior god Skanda, also called Murugan), is remembered here as the one who fell in love with Valli, a girl of the forest people. That love story is why Kataragama is a place people associate with devotion and longing at once, and naming it sets the tone before the pilgrims even arrive.

Then the song fills with names and pictures of the journey. Ananda, Saroja, Raman, Anuradha, these are just the ordinary travellers, a mix of Sinhala and Tamil names that quietly captures how Kataragama draws every kind of pilgrim. The Menik Ganga, the “Gem River” that runs past the shrine, is where pilgrims bathe to cleanse themselves before worship, and the lyric sees the god’s grace flowing in that very water. The lovely touch is the river “trading kisses and running on as one, never dividing,” an image of people of different faiths and tongues washing in the same stream and becoming, for that moment, one body of devotees.

By the last verse the song arrives at the festival itself, the chant of “sadhu, sadhu” that rises from the crowd, the music, the dancing. The closing line, the anklets on the feet and the bangles on the wrists “laughing together,” catches the sound of a dancer in motion, the jingle of ornaments turned into shared joy. What you are left with is not heavy worship but the gladness of the pilgrimage, the sense that the trip to Kataragama is a celebration you take with the people you love, and that for one shining moment everyone there belongs to the same happiness.