It is believed that Hubert Rajapakse sang this song in the 1920’s. “Danno Budunge” the first two words of the song was sung by Hubert as “Dharma Budunge” “A popular notion is that being very western educated, he had some difficulty pronouncing Sinhalese words properly and Danno became Dharma. Being of the gramophone age, he recorded under the HMV (His Master’s Voice) label and the record was titled ‘Dharma Budunge’ (in Sinhala) - Ode to the Sacred City’ ”