Siripade Wandawanna Lyrics

To take him up to worship at Sri Pada, a cloth tied around his head
Lord of the sacred Bo tree, I have no son
Laying out rice from the new harvest for the milk-rice offering
Lord of the sacred Bo tree, I prayed for a son

So he can walk the lonely road alone without fear, like an elephant
So he can shine like a pinnacle, seen in all four directions
Lord of the sacred Bo tree, give me a son

To take him up to worship at Sri Pada…

So the weight of saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth) grows lighter for us women
So the grain-picking birds and doves may be led in procession
Lord of the sacred Bo tree, give me a son

To take him up to worship at Sri Pada…

A woman stands at the shrine with her hands together and asks for one thing: a son. That is the whole song. She is not asking for wealth or an easy life, and she never talks about herself except as someone who has been left waiting. “Sirimā Bō Sāmini,” she calls, addressing the Lord of the great sacred Bo tree, and then she says the plain, painful sentence: I have no son.

The vow comes with the offerings a village family can actually make. She brings rice from the new harvest for the milk-rice offering, the first and best of what the paddy gave, which in Sinhala Buddhist practice is what you set aside for the temple before anyone in the house eats it. And she promises the pilgrimage: she will take the boy up Sri Pada, the mountain of the sacred footprint, with a cloth tied around his head the way families wrap a small child for the cold night climb. She is describing a future she does not have yet, which is what makes the line ache.

Then she says what kind of man she wants him to be. Like an elephant, so he can take the empty stretch of road alone and not be afraid, the fear every mother carries for a child who will one day be out in the world without her. Like the kotha, the finial at the very top of a dagaba, the highest point of the temple, catching light where people looking from any of the four directions can see it. She wants him steady and she wants him respected.

The last verse turns to something older and heavier. She asks that the burden of saṃsāra be made lighter for women like her, drawing on the long-held belief that a son’s merit, his almsgiving, his years in robes, travels back to the mother and eases her passage through rebirth after rebirth. Her last image is the most generous one in the song: even the birds and doves that come to pick up scattered paddy in the field should be gathered into the perahera, the procession. She wants a son whose merit is wide enough to carry the smallest lives along with it.

What stays with you is how modest the request sounds and how much sits behind it. In a village where a woman’s standing, her old age, and her hope of a better rebirth all rested on having a son, this prayer is not a small wish. It is a life being asked for, at the foot of a mountain, in the only currency she has: new rice, a vow, and her voice.