Jayewardene requested that the government recognise Samarakoon's 'Namo Namo Matha' as the official national anthem. More specifically, in 1950 Minister of Finance J. At the first independence day ceremony held on 4 February 1949 at the Independence Memorial Hall in Torrington Square both 'Namo Namo Matha' and 'Sri Lanka Matha Pala Yasa Mahima' were sung, in Sinhala and Tamil, as 'national songs'. Ceylon continued to use the UK's national anthem as its official national anthem after independence. 'Sri Lanka Matha Pala Yasa Mahima' was broadcast by Radio Ceylon on the morning of 4 February 1948, independence day, but it was not sung at the official Freedom Day celebrations. The latter won the competition but this was controversial as Illangasinghe and Edirisinghe were members of the judging panel. Among the entries were 'Namo Namo Matha' by Samarakoon and 'Sri Lanka Matha Pala Yasa Mahima' by P. Prior to Ceylon's independence (1948) the Lanka Gandharva Sabha had organised a competition to find a national anthem. After it was sung by the choir from Musaeus College, Colombo at a public event it became hugely popular in Ceylon and was widely played on radio. The song, which was then known as 'Namo Namo Mata', was first sung by students at Mahinda College. After returning to Ceylon Samarakoon taught music at Mahinda College, Galle. Samarakoon had been a pupil of Tagore at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan. Tagore being directly involved in the creation of the song has been denied by some historians like Indian Lipi Ghosh and Sri Lankan Sandagomi Coperahewa. Some have suggested that Tagore wrote the music whilst Samarakoon wrote the lyrics. A minority suggest that Tagore wrote the anthem in full. The most widely held view is that Sri Lankan composer Ananda Samarakoon wrote the music and lyrics to the song, inspired/influenced by the Indian Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. There are differing accounts as to the origin of the 'Sri Lanka Matha'. Problems playing this file? See media help.

Sinhala song lyrics in sinhala font