Piyakaru Nuwara Wawe

On the lovely Kandy lake
ripples of water in the moonlight
they sway, they rock, ah, ah, the beauty
of this Sinhala dreamworld

Come, my sweet and darling friend, to the bank of the Kandy lake
sit here in this white moonlight
on this pearl of the East
and let us watch the famous, pure Sinhala splendour, nurturing love as we please

Look, my dear, look there, at the beauty of the Temple of the Tooth
the soft white moonbeams falling upon it
joined together as one
it is like an act of worship to the sacred Tooth, devoted to the Buddha’s word

For the wrong done by Ehelepola the minister, Ehelepola Devi
at the bottom of Bogambara lake
offered up her life; remembering it
the trees and creepers seem to weep, letting fall the dew drop by drop

On the gentle breeze that rises off the lake, kissing the wild flowers
the pure, soft Sinhala fragrance is felt
the Temple of the Tooth comes into view
amid these hills and peaks, kiss and comfort me, my up-country gem

This is a moonlit love song that doubles as a hymn to Kandy, the old hill capital. It opens on the “lovely Kandy lake,” its ripples silvered by the moon, and calls the whole scene a “Sinhala dreamworld.” The singer invites his beloved, his “sweet and darling friend,” to come sit with him on the bank of the lake and take in the beauty of the city he calls the “pearl of the East,” nurturing their love as they watch.

The romance is inseparable from reverence. He points across the water to the Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, the holiest place in the Buddhist world, glowing as the moonbeams fall on it. Gazing at it in the moonlight, he says, is itself “like an act of worship,” love and devotion folding into one feeling. To sit by this lake with the one you love is also to sit before the sacred.

Then the song reaches into Kandyan history and grief. It recalls Ehelepola Devi, wife of the minister Ehelepola, who lost her life in the Bogambara lake as punishment for her husband’s defiance of the last king, one of the most painful stories in Kandyan memory. Remembering her, even the trees and creepers “seem to weep,” dropping dew like tears. The final verse returns from history to the present moment: a soft breeze rises off the lake, carrying the “pure Sinhala fragrance” of wild flowers, the Temple appears again, and the singer asks his “up-country gem” to kiss and comfort him among these hills. What the listener is left with is a rich Kandyan tapestry, love, moonlight, sacred devotion and old sorrow, all held together on the shore of one beautiful lake.