Irak Payana Deshaya Lyrics by Victor Rathnayake

A land where the sun rises, a land the whole world has come to love
This is my country, so beautiful, look at it, my friend.

The dawning world of the nation, my country is my heart
O blessed soil of my Sinhale (the Sinhalese land), I kiss this ground.

O blessed soil of my Sinhale, I kiss this ground.

Standing before foreign lands, like a spineless nation,
both knees pressed to the earth, my elders, how could I ever live?

The great dignity of the nation, my country is my heart
O blessed soil of my Sinhale, I kiss this ground.

O blessed soil of my Sinhale, I kiss this ground.

A land where the sun rises, a land the whole world has come to love
This is my country, so beautiful, look at it, my friend.

This is a patriotic song, a hymn of love and pride for Sri Lanka. The singer turns to a friend and asks them to simply look at the country: the land where the sun rises, beautiful enough that the whole world has grown fond of it. There is no romance or heartbreak here. The feeling is the warm, fierce attachment a person has for the soil they were born to, and the song asks the listener to feel that same pride.

The line about kissing the ground carries the heart of it. “Sinhale” is the old, affectionate name for the island and its people, and calling the soil “pinbara,” blessed or full of merit, is the language of devotion, the kind of reverence usually saved for something sacred. To kneel and kiss the earth is to say this land is not just where I happen to live, it is part of who I am. The poet even calls the country his own heart, so that loving the land and loving himself become the same thing.

Then the song sharpens into something prouder. It pictures the shame of a nation that stands before foreign powers like a coward, bowing both knees to the ground, and the singer says plainly that he could never live that way. This is the older meaning of “manaya,” not arrogance but dignity and self-respect. The message is that a country worth loving is also a country worth standing up for, one that does not grovel before others. By the time the opening lines return, the gentle “look how beautiful my country is” has gathered a backbone behind it.

What stays with you is the mix of tenderness and steel. The same voice that kneels to kiss the soil out of love refuses to kneel before anyone else out of fear. For a Sri Lankan listener it lands as both affection and a quiet call to keep one’s head up, a reminder that pride in your land and respect for yourself are the same feeling.