Api Okkoma Rajawaru Lyrics by Victor Rathnayake

We are all kings, all of us subjects
all of Thun Sinhalaya (the three realms of the island) are kin
we are all mothers, all of us fathers
all of Thun Sinhalaya are sons and daughters…//

Raising the banner of victory, bringing in the goddess of fortune//
we broke the strength and pride of the enemy host
we honoured the lotus and brought royal joy
we broke the slavish mind from heart and body…//

We are all kings…

Flowers bloomed in our hearts, smiles rose up//
the fires of sorrow in the heart were put out
the light of our eyes shone, our thoughts were bound together//
songs of victory and blessing were sung…//

We are all kings…

This is a patriotic song, a call for unity and equality among all Sri Lankans. There is no single lover or heartbreak here. The voice is the voice of a whole people speaking together, and its message is simple and proud: we are all the same, and we all belong to one another. “We are all kings, all of us subjects” is not a contradiction, it is the whole point. No one stands above anyone else. Whether you think of yourself as a ruler or as an ordinary person, mother or father, son or daughter, you are family to everyone else on this island.

When the song says “Thun Sinhalaya,” it reaches back to an old name for the country. In traditional reckoning the island was divided into three regions, Pihiti, Maya and Ruhuna, and “the three Sinhala lands” became a poetic way of meaning the whole of Sri Lanka. So calling everyone in Thun Sinhalaya kin is a way of saying that the entire nation, from one end to the other, is one family.

The middle verse turns to pride and freedom. The banner of victory goes up, and “siriduva,” the goddess of fortune and prosperity, is welcomed in. The enemy’s strength and arrogance are broken. The line that carries the most weight is the one about breaking the “paragathi sitha,” the slavish or dependent mind. For a Sri Lankan listener this points straight at the long centuries under foreign rule and the habit of thinking of oneself as lesser, as a subject of someone else. To break that mindset, in heart and in body, is to stand up free and whole again.

The last verse lets the feeling soften into joy. Flowers bloom in the heart, smiles return, the old fires of sorrow are put out, and eyes shine again. People’s thoughts are “bound together,” tied as one, and songs of blessing and victory rise up. It closes where it began, on the idea that this is a shared happiness. The song leaves you with the warmth of belonging, the sense that dignity and freedom are not won by one person but by a whole people who finally see themselves as equals.