Talk:Sri Lanka Matha/Archive 1

Untitled
I do not understand this. Can someone add what it means, what it's purpose is? 159.46.248.218 08:21, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Ok now I get the point.. 159.46.248.216 10:29, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hi We would like to see the Tamil version of Sri Lanka Thaya (Matha) - Please make it awailable for us. thanks

Surely to goodness there is a more modern English translation? If not, I'll try it myself, although since I have neither Sinhalese nor Tamil I'm going to be flying blind. . . anybody want to assist? Credmond 22:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The English translation is way wrong. Sorry Credmond. Maybe it should be removed?
 * I'd translate it, but even for me (a Sinnhalese) the words are pretty complicated. Besides, it's only sung in Sinahalese (I've never even heard of a Tamil version before to be honest).
 * The article on the language says it's in Sinhalese (as in the people) and not Sinhala (as in the language) so I'm correcting it.--Snowolfd4 20:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The english translation is not wrong, that's the correct version, however from what I saw in the sinhalese lyrics, SRI LANKA is not spelt that way in sinhalese, whoever typed that up is obviously not sinhalese. Go back to the main wikipedia article and see how Sri Lanka is written.

English
Come on. The English translation is wrong. Enough with the ridiculous English poetry translations. I want the real words. There is absolutely NO way that..

Namo Namo Namo Namo Matha = Plenteous in prosperity, Thou.

Please. Someone translate it properly, without all the overtly sentimental yet in context, purposeful "mistakes".

-- Sundara Siri Barini can be translated as "plentious in prosperity." More accurately and literally it would be "heavy with beauty and prosperity" The "Sri Lanka Matha, apa Sri Lanka, Namo Namo Namo Namo Matha" has been translated as "Mother Lanka we salute Thee!" although more accurately it would be "Mother Sri Lanka, Our Sri Lanka, Salutations, Salutations, Salutations, Salutations Mother." It's a pretty accurate translation in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.238.74 (talk) 23:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

National anthem of India
Though it is a fact that national anthem of India was originally written in Bengali language but, the official version is in Hindi (Hindi translation) only. Dinesh smita (talk) 06:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC) National Anthem of India Why you people forget about the fact that bangla and hindi are like sisters. they both were emerged from sanskrit. national anthem,s official part is same in both language. North India's Languages are derived from sanskrit - Panjabi, himanchali, hindi, brij, bhojpuri, avadhi, bangali, rajasthani, bundelkhandi, gujarati, marathi, oriya and all the dravdidian language family is heavily influenced by sanskrit including Tamil and simhali. We should be proud of our shared great past and should look forward to a better future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.177.113 (talk) 09:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The national anthem of India was and is in Bengali, there was never any translation into another language. What is meant with "Hindi version" is not the language of the text, but the pronunciation. Usually, except in Bengali speaking regions, the original Bengali pronunciation is not used, but the very different pronunciation of Hindi (and other North Indian New Indo-Aryan languages). For the purposes of the Sri Lankan national anthem, that is, however, irrelevant, as we are here dealing with a translation into another language (Tamil) and not a different pronunciation. Since the persons responsible for the article on the Sri Lankan national anthem clearly know neither Hindi nor Bengali, they should steer clear of mixing up such issues and simply refer to the article on the Indian national anthem. 116.202.204.222 (talk) 12:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The point is not advanced linguistics of Hindi and Bengali, or Sinhalese for that matter, but that Weeravamsa had said that the national anthem of India is in Hindi. As he is not a Hindi speaker he would know the difference between Hindi and Bengali, and when the Indian offical documents and numerous other books and journals (of which I have added a reference too) say that the Indian National anthem is in Hindi, he cannot be critized for saying that it is. However he can be critized for numerous other lies and distortions he has made in connection with the national anthem, but not this one. As I gather even Indians have difficulty deciding whether the language is Hindi or Bengali. So the point DBS has tried to make totally fails in this case. Hope the editors get the point and stop reverting this edit with diverse IP addresses. --SriSuren (talk) 13:13, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

It is very offensive to steal Ananda Samarakoon's credit from him
Especially based on only two sources. No one has said Tagore wrote the song before 2011 - for the last 70 years it has been known that Ananda wrote this song by Sri Lankans. The records released credit Ananda; the song is not among Tagore's songs in his book as mentioned above. Please stop this insanity. 08:53, 5 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CaptainPrimo (talk • contribs)

Discussion of undue weight

 * "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article." Only 2 sources state that Rabindranath Tagore wrote the song for Ananda Samarakoon. There's an unending supply of sources that say that Ananda wrote it by himself inspired by Tagore. The former sounds like a viewpoint held by an extremely small minority which is discouraged by NPOV. CaptainPrimo (talk) 19:04, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * You are I'm afraid twisting the sources to suit your own view, violating WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Two sources (Habib and Haque) state that Tagore wrote the music and lyrics. One source (Weerasooriya) says Tagore helped Samarakoon write and compose the song. Four sources (de Silva, Wriggins, Times of India and IBN Live) say that Samarakoon was inspired by Tagore. Assuming that this implies Samarakoon wrote the music is a violation of WP:NOR - it may mean Samarakoon penned the lyrics to Tagore's music, we just don't know, so all we can say is that Samarakoon was inspired by Tagore. Three sources (Radhakrishnan, Saparamadu and Sunday Times) claim Samarakoon wrote/composed the song. Two other sources are also given which allegedly say that Samarakoon wrote the song but as they are in Sinhala this cannot be verified.


 * Therefore there is no definitive answer as to who wrote the song. To exclude one view, claiming it is a minority view is a violation of WP:NPOV. Degenerating a view by stating that "Primary sources do not support this" is a violation of WP:NPOV. Using an unreliable source like popsike.com to dismiss a view is a violation of WP:NPOV. Here in Wikipedia we do not form opinions, we simply state what WP:RS are saying. As it stands now, the article states all views in a neutral manner, in a passive voice and with reliable sources.-- obi2canibe talk contr 20:34, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Tamil version controversy section
Dear all, I cleaned up this section to the best of my ability a couple of weeks ago (newbie here). Still, I believe much of the content there is not quite appropriate for this article; essentially the whole section is dedicated to an inaccurate newspaper report, and the bulk of the commentary is simply explaining the multilingual nature of other national anthems. A more succinct section may be more suitable- agree/disagree/comments? I also notice that there seems to be a blanking/revert war going on. 82.12.139.230 (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

DBS Jeyaraj in an apparently well researched article linked in ref http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/1892 says in Dec 2010 that Four years after Freedom on February 4th 1952, “Namo Namo Matha” was sung at Independence day ceremonies as the official national anthem. ... The Tamil version was first broadcast officially on “Radio Ceylon” on February 4th 1955.

BBC in 2016 reports that it was last sung in 1949 !!! Even before Namo Namo matha was officially accepted as National Anthem and Tamil scholar Pundit M.Nallathamby was entrusted this task of translation

and wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka_Matha now quoting BBC in 2016 says The Tamil language version has been used in the 1st independence anniversary in 1949.

Is the records being chnged by an inaccurate BBC report. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lakdiva (talk • contribs) 06:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of the fact that Tagore wrote the national anthem of Sri Lanka in Bengali, Ananda Samarakoon later translated it into Sinhala language
There is no proper evidence sited except for the (Hindu)Celebrating Rabindranath Tagore's legacy article and the DBS Jeyaraj's (article). None of the two articles cite any reference used in writing them. They are personal opinions and not reliable sources. Saying that Rabindaranath Tagore penned the national anthem without solid proof is a violation of Ananda Samarakoone's intellectual property rights. It's fair to say that the song was influenced by Tagore as Ananda Samarakoone was a student of the former. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thilinarmtb (talk • contribs) 20:07, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Haroon Habib says in The Hindu: "Sri Lanka's national anthem was also penned by Tagore: Apa Sri Lanka, Nama Nama Nama Nama Mata, Sundar Sri Boroni was originally Nama Nama Sri Lanka Mata in Bangla, written and set to its tune by Tagore. He did it at the request of his favourite Sri Lankan student at Santiniketan, Ananda Samarkun, in 1938. In 1940, Ananda returned to his native land and translated the song into Sinhalese and recorded it in Tagore's tune." You may See the article here: Celebrating Rabindranath Tagore's legacy. Later someone added this fact to this article (see here) the edition of Sri Lanka Matha on 2 April 2012]. Later someone Sri Lankan driven by Chauvinism edited the article and removed the fact saying that "An article without sources published in The Hindu, TN newspaper cannot be used as a reliable source for this statement. For all its 70+ year history it has been known that both the lyrics & the tune for Sri Lanka Matha were composed by Samarakoon". But this user thinks all the history of Sri Lanka Matha was written by Sri Lankan. So they may deny it by saying it was influenced by Tagore or Ananda Samarakoon wrote it after his return from Santiniketan in 1940 from the notes he took before reaching his ancestral residence in Padukka. Anyway Haroon Habib's claim at least should have been put into the History section or controversy. And in such debates the issues should be always dissolved by third party editors without national biases relying upon the resources they can provide. -S M Maniruzzaman (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Tagore is a very respected person in Sri Lanka, but he did not have anything to do with the national anthem of Sri Lanka. The only connection he has to the Sri Lankan national anthem is that its composer, Ananda Samarakoon was his student for 6 months. The Chennai newspaper (the Hindu) article/rumour says that Tagore wrote the song and set it to tune at the request of his favourite student Samarakoon, in 1938. The problem with this rumour is that Samarakoon was just a musician and was in no poisition to decide the national anthem on his own, and he was never entrusted with writing it. So Samarakoon was in no position to request Tagore to write the national anthem of Sri Lanka. Also at that time in 1938, there was no need of a national anthem, as Sri lanka was a British colony, and independence seem far away with amoung other things, the second world war starting. So the question is how in the world can Samarakoon ask Tanjore to write the national anthem of Sri Lanka, also 10 years prior to the question even arising? Moreover, even at independence in 1948, Sri Lanka didn't have a national anthem, and Samarakoon's song "Sri Lanka Matha" was adopted as the national anthem only after almost 4 years had past since independence. Choosing the national anthem was a long process where a committe was set up and competitions were held, and in the meantime another song served as the national anthem. If Tagore had already written the national anthem of Sr Lanka 10 years prior to independence, how is all this possible? Also the original lyrics of the song expressed sentiments of a person who felt that his country needed to be free of foreign rule. Hardly lyrics suitable for a national anthem. Where necessary the lyrics were adjusted to the past tense, and in some instances and slightly changed when it was adopted as the national anthem in 1951. So again the question is how is all this possible, after 10 years after Tagore's death, if he wrote THE national anthem of Sri lanka?


 * Even if one considers the simple deductions given above, from the referenced and documented facts, it is clear that Tagore could not have possibly written this song. The story from the Chennai newspaper sounds like an ill constructed rumour. Therefore as u see your fact (sic) is not rejected based on Sri Lankan nationalistic chauvinism as you have accused me of, but on the actual history of this song. We would have been honoured to have our national anthem composed by this great guru, but he did not compose it. Attributing the song to its rightful composer and creater is hardly a nationalistic or a chauvistic matter.  While Haroon Habib would like to exaggerate the legacy of Tagore, by adding the Sri Lankan national anthem to it, it can't be allowed to be done at the expense of Ananda Samakoon's legacy. So as you you see, it is also about Ananda Samarakoon's legacy. As you yourself say, there must be reliable sources - the only source for your claim is the newspaper rumour in the Chennai newspaper.  I should add that in the over 150 years of known history of Tanjore's life too, that it is not been known that he had composed the national anthem of Sri Lanka. For example the Wikipedia article on Tagore which has existed for 10+ years and edited by numerous editors the past decade stated only that he is credited with writing national anthems of 2 countries, until this rumour which u call a fact was added by you a couple of weeks ago (on 4th April 2012), citing the Chennai newspaper rumour as your only reference. Exceptional claims need exceptional sources, and a newpaper article cannot be accepted the sole reference for this claim. Controversies can be made by anybody by writing an article, but the question is whether they are encyclopedic material WP:NOT. If you are not happy with my explaination you are free to get third party opinions or start a dispute resolution on this. --SriSuren (talk) 17:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Haroon Habib did not say that Samarakoon requested Tagore to write the national anthem of Sri Lanka. He said "Apa Sri Lanka, Nama Nama Nama Nama Mata, Sundar Sri Boroni was originally Nama Nama Sri Lanka Mata in Bangla, written and set to its tune by Tagore. He did it at the request of his favourite Sri Lankan student at Santiniketan, Ananda Samarkun, in 1938. In 1940, Ananda returned to his native land and translated the song into Sinhalese and recorded it in Tagore's tune." Do you know when India and Bangladesh achieved independence? Respectively in 1947 and 1971. But Tagore died on 7 August 1941. So it's beyond question that someone requested him, who was against Nationalism, to write the national anthems of India and Bangladesh? And Tagore wrote those songs out of his love for Indian subcontinent. He composed Amar Shonar Bangla to protest against the partition of Bengal in 1905. He never thought that those songs would become the national anthems of later sovereign countries of Indian subcontinent. This may happen in case of Sri Lanka Matha too. Anyway I want too that the credit of that song must go its rightful composer and creater. That is why I said that as there are controversies, the History section should have a reflection of it. Anyway I cannot read Sinhala Language so I can not compare Tagore's that song with Sri Lanka Matha. If you know Bangla and want to compare them, I will collect the Tagore's song in Bengali and send it to you. -Smmmaniruzzaman (talk) 02:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I know about those songs and its all in the references given too. This "fact" u want to write into the article is not just controversial but really problematic, since it virtually makes Samarakoon into a plagiarist, plagiarism being a majour fraud, makes this much loved singer in Sri Lanka into a fraud.  As far as the long and documented history of this song concerns, it was composed by Samarakoon and he would have been the first person to say that the song was written by Tagore, if that was the case, if not for anything else, to gain more recognition for the song.


 * If you could send or copy and paste the Bengali lyrics in this talk page or in my talk page, in the Bengali script and if possible the Roman script I'll appreciate it. Although I do not know Bengali, I can check the words and try to make something out of it. Failing that we can ask others to help. Can you also try to find out whether Samarakoon had any direct contacts with Tagore at all? Because it seems as though Samarakoon didn't have direct contact with Tagore when he studied at Shantiniketan, as he studied under Shanti Devi Gosh (see the first link below). I would like to add that Tagores connection to Sri Lanka is much more significant than just musical - he was a friend of Anagarika Dharmapala and other important people here at that time. Dharmapala has been helped by the Bengalis in his work to restore Bodh Gaya to the Buddhists again. Rabindranath's father too, has been here, in the mid 19th century. Tagore established the Sri Palee College here and he has influenced SL in many ways. So please do not think that if Tagore had written the national anthem of SL, that any Srilankan will try to hide it or claim otherwise.


 * You can read some of the history of this song and see how attatched Samarakoon was to this song and a note he wrote to the Times paper just a few days he committed suicide in this this article, and decide for yourself if it is possible for this song to have any other hisory. Here are a couple of others too: ONE and TWO. The second link is from the University of Peradeniya and it outlines the influence Tagore and Bengali music has had on Sinhalese music. This influence is not superficial, it is profound. After doing some reading about Tagore, Samarakoon and Sinhalese music at that time, I have a hunch about where this misunderstanding about Tagore writing the national anthem comes from. Just give me some days after you post the lyrics. I'll try to answer as soon as possible. I think that we can find a way to include all the information. I'll be busy with a couple of other articles in the coming days, so I won't prevent u from adding the information u want, but I do not think Tajore or SL national anthem can take any more controversies. If u feel u can't wait until consensus reached, u are free to add it. Just don't dump it in the article as you did last time, which didn't make any sense at all, in addition to the problem of the source.  Regards --SriSuren (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I was intrigued and wanted to verify this new claim that Tagore had originally composed the song in Bengali. I have been an admirer of Tagore from my teenage years and have had much of my life and views influenced by ideology. While I accept that the music is largely in the style of Rabindrasangeet, the cited song title 'Namo Namo Sri Lanka Mata' is not present in Tagore's book of songs, Gitabitan. Gitabitan, as everyone knows is the only scholarly source for songs written AND composed by him. A really huge amount of research has been done on that book over many years to refute it. So I agree that the Wikipedia article should be corrected and Tagore's name be removed as writer and music composer until any reliable evidence is unearthed. Personally, I feel the claims are imaginary. Being an accomplished poet himself, why would Samarakoon request Tagore to write a song for Sri Lanka for him that too in Bengali, and why would Tagore himself comply? It was definitely not primary level spoon feeding education which was going on there in Shantiniketan. Moreover, during the later years of his life, Tagore had distanced himself from the more fervent forms of Nationalism; it seems unlikely that he would write a nationalist poem and that too for a country/political region that he does not belong to. Coming to the music, Tagore did give music to numerous songs which were not written by him and there are many songs of Tagore starting with Namo Namo. It is unlikely that Tagore had extended collaborations with Samarakoon and most likely he must have had only few talks with Samarakoon on music during the latter's stay in 1938.

What seems more plausible is that Samarakoon was just inspired by the style. Since there is no documented evidence that Tagore had composed the song or even collaborated with Samarakoon during composition, it would be wrong to take away the rightful credit from Samarakoon.D Datta (talk) 17:38, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

You gotta be kidding the public to do this kind of a joke! Please do not  publish garbage on this wikipedia, as people will lose their confidence on the facts in here. National anthem of Sri Lanka was written by Ananda Samarakon in 1940 when he was in Sri Lanka. He was a student of Tagore for six months and that's the only link Tagore has to this anthem.Please do not insult the creator of the national anthem of Sri Lanka, as he has been insulted enough by his own people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.203.54.32 (talk) 06:17, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Why don't we go and find the teachers of other writers and their sources of influence and attribute their works to their respective teachers and sources of inspiration also. Is every work, which is worked by a student of Shanti Niketan, attributed to Tagore as in this case? There is nothing to do here with Sri Lanka chauvinism (If someone says so he just spits in the air). Sri Lankans also highly respect Tagore. Undoubtedly he is more than a poet to us. Please do not disgrace that great teacher.  Samarakoon committed suicide because his lyrics were distorted. Now it has been fully stolen. This is a really disgrace to the both poets. (It would have been a great honor to Sri Lanka if Tagore had really written it.)
 * Article says According to them, Samarakoon then returned to Ceylon in 1940 and translated Tagore's song into the Sinhala language Apa Sri Lanka, Namo Namo Namo Namo Matha, Sundar Sri Boroni .
 * The original song was Namo namo matha, The very reason for Samarakoone's suicide was adding Apa Sri... Lanka at the begining of the song. It is really funny this so called original Bengali version had that part originally. I suggest next time do a little research before inventing stories. Please correct this article if cannot be cited an original source. This song, lyrics and music, should only be credited to Ananda Samarakoon as in officaial website of Sri Lanka. https://www.gov.lk/index.php# You learn music from a teacher. Then you implement what you learn from the teacher. Is it rightful to credit every original work of the student to the teacher?  Do not make wikipedia a place of false information. More people (More journalist may be) cite Wikipedia and this kind of false information becomes a truth(It seems like this false info has been here nearly four years). This is very unencyclopedic. අනංගයා (talk) 05:51, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

== Regarding the pathetic work of Obi2canibe, trying to mislead the facts, stating that Tagore wrote the national anthem of Sri Lanka in Bengali, Ananda Samarakoon later translated it  ==

Sri Lanka is country with a majority of 80% sinhalese. Sinhala is the language of Sinhalese, which exists before 3rd century AD. Ananda Samrakoon was a Teacher at Mahinda College Galle. He was teaching at Mahinda college from 1938 and he wrote the national anthem in 1940, there is no evidence about Tagore writing it. below is a plank in Mahinda College about the Origin of the National Anthem

Tagore does not know Sinhala Language and it is a well known fact that, The Sri Lankan national Anthem was written in Sinhala, the music is not Indian Ragadhari music, it is Sinhala Music.

Therefore, as a Sri Lankan we do have a great respect for Tagore, I would like to kindly ask from Obi2canibe not to mislead the facts, and change the origin of a 70 year old Song written in Sinhala Language, based on an Individual comment from an Indian Journalist. if it was written in Bengali or if it is Indian music. Sri Lanka would not choose it as the national anthem.


 * Welcome to Wikipedia Kush sinhala. One of the core content policies of Wikipedia is neutral point of view which means that all significant views that have been published by reliable sources are included. Several reliable sources have been provided which state that Samrakoon's work was based on or influenced by Tagore. We don't hide these views just because it contradicts what you or others in Sri Lanka may have been been brought up to belief to be the truth.


 * You have also not understood the process of how songs are written. A song consists of two parts - the music (the tune) and the lyrics (the words). The person who writes the music is called the composer and the person who writes the words is called the lyricist. Generally the composer is given credit for writing the song. Therefore it is very possible that Tagore composed the music and Samrakoon just put words to the music. Tagore did not need to know Sinhala to compose the music.


 * Songs are also often translated from one language to another. It is very common for South Asian films to be remade in other languages. When this happens the songs in the film are translated into the other language but retain the original music. So it is possible that Samrakoon's Sinhala lyrics were just translations of something Tagore wrote in Bengali. This is what couple of the reliable sources say happened.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:02, 1 May 2016 (UTC)


 * this is a very stupid logic, The Sri Lankan national Anthem was written in Sri Lanka in Sinhala language, in 1940, and the music( the tune) is not Indian Ragadari music, it is Sinhalese music, and Rabindranath Tagore died August 7th 1941, there is no way he has written the sri lankan national anthem
 * SantoshSL (talk) 22:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * It's a pity that you and others don't seem to understand how Wikipedia works. Here on Wikipedia we include what reliable sources say about the subject matter, not what individual editors believe to be correct. In this case reliable sources differ as to the origins of the anthem and so, to comply with the neutral point of view policy which requires all significant views that have been published by reliable sources to be included, the different views have been included with citations. You and others seem hell bent on ignoring Wikipedia policies simply because the content differs from what you've been taught.


 * Your assertion that the anthem could not have been written by Tagore because he died before the anthem was chosen to be Ceylon's anthem does not bare scrutiny. I have explained in my previous comment how Tagore could have written the tune and Samrakoon put lyrics to the tune later on. Or Samrakoon could have translated Tagore's lyrics into Sinhala and modified it.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:21, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

As SantoshSL has not responded I am restoring the removed referenced content.-- obi2canibe talk contr 13:27, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Solving the issue
I think both views needs to be properly mentioned allowing the reader to choose instead of attemting push one thoery over another. Its impossible to know the true history and the edit war will only confuse readers. Thanks UmdP  19:29, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Interesting perspective but it does not address the serious issues I've raised about Obi's sources. BlueLotusLK (talk) 09:04, 10 January 2017 (UTC)