Karuna Suwanda Lyrics by Nihal Nelson

The lotus of my heart is smeared with the fragrance of your compassion
A mother’s love is the spring from which all my comfort flows
I would run up and reach you in a single leap, the way I used to
But who is there to call mother now, oh mother
Who is left for me, mother…

You turned your blood into milk and fed me
You who raised me and brought me up, mother
When I was small and crawling on my knees
You gave me your hand to help me stand, mother
You showed me good from bad
And gave me your guidance, mother…
In the saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth) still to come, as your very own son
I pray to be born again, mother

The fragrance of your compassion…..

When I cried from hunger
You fed me rice, mother
You sent me to school and had me taught
You made me into a grown man, mother
With love you would scold me a little
And then call me your son, mother…
When you become a Buddha one day and preach the dhamma
I too will see nirvana, mother

The fragrance of your compassion…..

This is a son’s tribute to his mother, sung after she is gone. The ache is right there in the opening: he says he would still run and reach her in a single leap, the way a small child bolts to its mother, but now there is no one to run to. “Who is there to call mother now?” is the question the whole song circles around, and you can feel the loss in it.

From there he simply remembers everything she did. She turned her own blood into milk to feed him, an old Sinhala way of saying a mother gives her very body to keep her child alive. She gave him her hand when he was crawling and learning to stand. She fed him rice when he cried from hunger, sent him to school, and made him into a grown man. Even her scolding came wrapped in love, and always ended with her calling him “son.” None of these are grand images, and that is the point. The love is in the ordinary, daily care, and listing it plainly is what makes it hit.

Two lines lift the song from grief into Buddhist hope, and they are the heart of it. He prays that in the saṃsāra still to come, in some future life in the long cycle of rebirth, he will be born again as her son. And he believes that one day she will become a Buddha and preach the dhamma, and on that day he too will reach nirvana through her. For a Sri Lankan Buddhist listener this is the deepest love a child can offer a mother, not just to miss her in this life but to want her again across countless lives, and to tie his own final liberation to hers.

The title image, the fragrance of compassion smeared on the lotus of the heart, ties it all together. The lotus is the Buddhist symbol of a pure heart, and his mother’s love is the sweet fragrance soaked into it. What the song leaves you holding is gratitude turned into prayer: a son who can no longer run to his mother, asking only to be her child again, lifetime after lifetime.