Sri Lanka Matha is the national anthem of Sri Lanka. Original song was written and tuned by the greatest Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. Later it was translated and composed by the Ananda Samarakoon in 1940, and was later adopted as the national anthem in 1951.[2][3][4] It was written when Sri Lanka was still a British colony and was initially written as a tribute to Sri Lanka, expressing sentiments of freedom, unity and independence, and not for the purpose of serving as a national anthem.