Perum Puragena A Sansare Lyrics by Senanayake Weraliyadda

Through saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth) I came, my wishes long gathered
And then my hopes were scattered to dust and fell away
Who was it that got hurt, whose heart was broken
The train stopped only for a moment

Like the pollen of a flower, like a fragrance
The comfort of life is beyond measure //
Like a stream, like a cupped handful of water
Life gives a cool, sweet ease

Was there ever a moment my eyes did not fill with tears
A sorrow my heart could not bear //
How beautiful this life can be
And the sorrow itself, what a kind of joy it holds

This is a song that sits and thinks about life itself, the way a person does when they stop and look back on everything they have carried. It opens with the word sansare, saṃsāra, the long cycle of births and deaths that Buddhist thinking places every life inside. The singer says he came into this life through saṃsāra carrying wishes he had gathered over many lifetimes, and then those wishes were scattered like dust and lost. It is a quiet, grown-up sorrow, the feeling of hopes you held for so long slipping through your fingers.

The image of the train in the first verse is the heart of it. “The train stopped only for a moment” is how the song pictures a whole life, or a meeting between two people, or a love. A train pulls into a station, pauses just long enough, and then moves on. That is all the time we get. In that brief stop someone was hurt and someone’s heart was broken, and the song does not even fully name who, because that is the point: the connection was so short that what remains is just the ache of it.

Then the middle verse turns and looks at the sweetness instead. Life is like the pollen and fragrance of a flower, like a stream of water, like the little you can hold in two cupped hands. These are gentle, ordinary Sri Lankan images for something precious and fleeting. Pollen and scent drift away, water runs through your fingers, yet while you have them they give a cooling, sweet relief. The song is saying life is small and passing, but in its passing it still hands you real comfort.

The last lines hold the two feelings together without choosing between them. The singer asks: was there ever a moment my eyes were dry, a sorrow my heart could actually bear? And in the same breath, how beautiful life can be. The closing thought is the one that lingers, that even the sorrow carries a strange sweetness inside it. That is a very Sri Lankan, very Buddhist way of seeing things, not pushing the pain away but holding it gently as part of what makes a life worth having.