Adai Wesak Poho Lyrics by Sunil Santha

Today is the Wesak Poya
the world is a wedding hall
dance and song and music, all the old customs
adorn all three worlds

Wesak, the Wesak moon, and the whole world keeps festival
offer, offer with joy to the supreme Buddha, Father of the three worlds
made of incense and flowers, freed from fault and blemish
worship with devotion, and bathe in the Buddha’s great deathless river

Every direction is decked with lamps in Wesak splendour
the gods dance in the heaven of the thirty-three, singing songs of joy
adorning gardens and mansions, filling hearts with gladness
worship with devotion, and bathe in the Buddha’s great deathless river

Voices of devotion ring out, echoing to every quarter
a cool breeze blows always, easing the fever of the body
seeking the mansion of nibbana, casting off the many defilements
worship with devotion, and bathe in the Buddha’s great deathless river

This is a Wesak song, made for the holiest full moon of the Buddhist year, the day that marks the Buddha’s birth, his enlightenment and his passing all at once. The opening lines capture that festival joy exactly: “today is Wesak Poya, the world is a wedding hall,” alive with dance, song, music and every old custom, all “three worlds” decked out in celebration.

The refrain carries the devotion. It calls on everyone to offer worship “to the supreme Buddha, Father of the three worlds,” with incense and flowers, having freed the mind of “fault and blemish,” and then it repeats the song’s central image: come “bathe in the Buddha’s great deathless river.” That river of the deathless, amaa ganga, is the nectar of nibbana, and to bathe in it is to immerse oneself in the teaching that ends all suffering.

The verses fill in the Wesak scene the whole island knows: every direction lit with lamps and lanterns, gods said to dance in the heaven of the thirty-three singing for joy, voices of devotion ringing out, and a cool breeze easing the body’s fever. Under all the festivity, the real aim keeps surfacing, “seeking the mansion of nibbana, casting off the many defilements.” What the listener is left with is the double spirit of Wesak itself, a bright, lamp-lit celebration on the surface, and beneath it a serene reaching toward liberation.