Rabindranath Tagore Biography

Rabindranath Tagore FRAS; Bengali Name: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter.[1][2][3] He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali,[4] he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.[5] Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.[6] He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal",[7][2][3] Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.[a]

A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district[9] and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.[10] At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics.[11] By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent critic of nationalism,[12] he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.

History:-

There are differing accounts as to the origin of the "Sri Lanka Matha". 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.[3][4][5][1] A minority suggest that Tagore wrote the anthem in full.[6][7][8][9] Some have suggested that Tagore wrote the music whilst Samarakoon wrote the lyrics.[10][11] 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.[12] Samarakoon had been a pupil of Tagore at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan.[13][14] After returning to Ceylon Samarakoon taught music at Mahinda College, Galle.[15][16] The song, which was then known as "Namo Namo Mata", was first sung by students at Mahinda College.[17][18] 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.[19]

Prior to Ceylon's independence (1948) the Lanka Gandharva Sabha had organised a competition to find a national anthem.[20][21] Among the entries were "Namo Namo Matha" by Samarakoon and "Sri Lanka Matha Pala Yasa Mahima" by P. B. Illangasinghe and Lionel Edirisinghe.[20][21] The latter won the competition but this was controversial as Illangasinghe and Edirisinghe were members of the judging panel.[20][21] "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.[20][21] Ceylon continued to use the UK's national anthem as its official national anthem after independence.[22] 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".[20][23]

More specifically, in 1950 Minister of Finance J. R. Jayewardene requested that the government recognise Samarakoon's "Namo Namo Matha" as the official national anthem.[19] The government appointed a committee headed by Edwin Wijeyeratne, Minister of Home Affairs and Rural Development, to pick a new national anthem.[22] The committee heard several songs but, after much deliberation, picked "Namo Namo Matha".[8][19][22] The committee made a minor change to Samarakoon's song, with his approval, changing the tenth line from "Nawajeewana Damine" to "Nawa Jeewana Demine Nithina Apa Pubudu Karan Matha".[19] The committee's decision was endorsed by the government on 22 November 1951.[15][22] The anthem was translated into the Tamil language by M. Nallathamby.[19][24][25] "Namo Namo Matha" was first sung as Ceylon's official national anthem at the independence day ceremony in 1952.[19][26]

In the late 1950s controversy arose over its first line, "Namo Namo Matha, Apa Sri Lanka".[18][19] It was deemed to be "unlucky" and blamed for the country's misfortunes including the deaths of two prime ministers.[18] In February 1961 the government changed the line to their present form, "Sri Lanka Matha, Apa Sri Lanka", despite Samarakoon's strong opposition.[19][24] Samarakoon committed suicide in April 1962, leaving a note complaining that its lyrics had been mutilated.[19]

The Second Republican Constitution of 1978 gave "Sri Lanka Matha" constitutional recognition.