Ammawarune Lyrics

O mothers… O mothers…
O mothers, you are fully enlightened Buddhas
On the day they see their children’s tears of sorrow
they stretch out a hand from the world of the gods
and wipe those tears away

For children who have no mother,
who knows their worry and their sorrow?
Only mothers know that sorrow,
mothers who will become Buddhas some day,
who will become Buddhas later in saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and rebirth)

O mothers… O mothers…

On the days love is plentiful, the heart turns innocent
and you believe the whole world loves you
On the day that turns out to be an illusion and you are left alone there,
only your mother is beside you
only your mother is beside you

O mothers… O mothers…
O mothers, you are fully enlightened Buddhas
On the day they see their children’s tears of sorrow
they stretch out a hand from the world of the gods
and wipe those tears away
O mothers… O mothers…

This is a song of praise for mothers, and in particular for mothers who are no longer alive. It never tells one family’s story. It calls out to all of them at once, the way you would call out in a temple, and the voice that sings it is a grown child speaking for everyone who has ever been someone’s child.

The line that carries the whole song is the second one, where mothers are addressed as samma sambuddha, fully enlightened Buddhas. For a Sri Lankan Buddhist listener that is about as high as words can go. A Buddha is reached only after countless lifetimes of perfecting compassion and giving without asking for anything back, and Dharmasiri Gamage’s argument is that a mother already does exactly that, every day, without calling it anything. Later he says it outright: mothers are the ones who will be Buddhas in some future life, somewhere further along in saṃsāra. It is a promise and a thank you at the same time.

The image of a hand reaching down from sura lova, the world of the gods, comes out of the everyday Sinhala belief that a mother who has died is reborn in a heaven realm and still keeps watch over the children she left. So the song is quietly consoling anyone whose mother is gone. She is not out of reach. She sees you crying and she still reaches for your face, only now from further away.

Then the middle verse turns to the children who have no mother at all, and asks who could possibly know what they carry. The answer is that only another mother knows. That is the moment the song stops being sweet and starts to hurt a little.

The last verse explains why it hurts. When you are loved from every side, your heart goes soft and simple, and you assume the whole world feels that way about you. Then one day the crowd thins out, the affection turns out to have been a kind of illusion, and you look around to see who is actually still standing there. Kemadasa’s melody keeps the volume low through all of this, and Nanda Malani’s voice repeats the answer twice rather than raising it, because it needs no argument. Only your mother is beside you. Anyone who has lost theirs knows what those two repeated lines cost.