Gajaga Vannama Lyrics by Ganitalankara BamunaTemple of the Tooth

Drum line: thakung jing kujing thaka jing gatha kukuda kukuthaka

Melody syllables: tha na tha m da na tha m da
tha m de na tha m da na tha m da
na na tha m da na tha m
da na tha, na

Verse: In the city of the gods there is an elephant, with sixteen temple-bosses on its head
eight long tusks, and seven hollows within

Melody syllables: tha na tha m da na tha m da
tha m de na tha m da na tha m da
na na tha m da na tha m
da na tha, na

Verse: Its tanks and ponds, they say, number seven hundred
and in a single one of those ponds rise four tiers

Melody syllables: tha na tha m da na tha m da
tha m de na tha m da na tha m da
na na tha m da na tha m
da na tha, na

Verse: Four flowers, with thirty-two petals between them
and on each petal, sixty-four stalks

Melody syllables: tha na tha m da na tha m da
tha m de na tha m da na tha m da
na na tha m da na tha m
da na tha, na

Verse: So the poet has sung its praise, in the words of the sages of the world
its name is Gajaga, and this is its vannama

Melody syllables: tha na tha m da na tha m da
tha m de na tha m da na tha m da
na na tha m da na tha m
da na tha, na

This is the Gajaga Vannama, the elephant song, one of the eighteen classical vannam that form the backbone of Kandyan dance. A vannama is a sung dance poem, and each one takes an animal or a theme and builds a movement around it. The Gajaga is the grandest of them, the elephant, the beast linked with royalty, the Tooth Relic procession, and strength. What you are reading is the traditional verse that a dancer’s drummer and singer perform: the bera padaya is the spoken drum pattern (the syllables that stand for the strokes of the geta bera), the thanama is the wordless melodic chant that sets the tune, and the kaviya is the actual poem in old literary Sinhala.

The poem itself is built as a riddle of numbers, which is part of its charm and why it has been remembered for generations. It does not describe an ordinary elephant. It conjures a vast, almost cosmic creature that belongs to the world of the gods (devpura, the city of the gods). The verse piles up impossible figures: sixteen kumbha, the rounded bosses on an elephant’s forehead, eight long tusks, seven hollows inside it. Then it widens further, seven hundred tanks and ponds, and within a single pond, four rising tiers, then four flowers with thirty-two petals, and on each petal sixty-four stalks. These numbers are not meant to be measured. They are a way of saying the elephant is boundless, holding whole landscapes of water and lotus and life inside its mythic frame, the way old Sinhala and Buddhist poetry often hides cosmic scale and sacred symbolism inside a count.

The closing lines step back and name what you have just heard. The poet says he has praised the creature in the words of the rishis, the sages of the world, giving the verse the weight of received tradition rather than one man’s invention. Then it signs off plainly: its name is Gajaga, and this is its vannama. That ending is a small signature, the same way each of the eighteen vannam announces itself at the close.

For a listener who does not know the form, the pleasure here is not heartbreak or longing but craft and reverence. It is a dancer’s text, meant to be moved to, where the rolling drum syllables and the swelling melody carry the body of a great elephant across the floor. The numbers, the lotus, the tanks, all of it reaches for something larger than a single animal, an image of abundance and majesty that has stood at the center of Sinhala court culture for centuries.