Did you know that Tagore contributed to three national anthems?  

All of you know who wrote our national anthem Jana Gana Mana, right? The literary genius and India’s first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Who wrote it for our neighbour Bangladesh? Again, Rabindranath Tagore. Wait, that’s not all. He has inspired (not written) another national anthem too, that of Srilanka! It’s a great feat indeed for any poet to have contributed to the adoption of three national anthems in the world. Let us find out about each one of them. 

Jana Gana Mana, India   
Also called the Bard of Bengal, Tagore is the author of the Indian national anthem Jana Gana Mana. It was originally written as Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata in Bengali by Tagore in December 1911. A few days after, it was publicly sung for the first time in Kolkata, but it was only the first verse out of the five of this song  that got adopted as the national anthem in 1950. A formal rendition of the national anthem takes approximately 52 seconds.   

Amar Shonar Bangla, Bangladesh  
It was many years earlier than our national anthem, that Tagore had penned down Amar Shonar Bangla which later was to become the national anthem of Bangladesh. Written in 1905 as an ode to Mother Bengal, immediately after Bengal’s first partition, the song was written with the hope of rekindling the spirit of love and unity between the people divided by a politically-motivated border. It first appeared in the periodical musical journal Shongeet Biggnan Probeshika in September 1905. At that time, as Tagore hummed the anthem, Indira Devi, Tagore’s niece, quickly noted down the musical notation of the song.  

Decades later in 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, the first 10 lines of the song were adopted as the country’s national anthem. The melody of the song was taken from Gagan Harkara’s (a Bengali Baul poet) song Ami Kothay Pabo Tare.  

Sri Lanka Matha, Sri Lanka  
While it is quite well known that Tagore wrote the above two anthems, what many people don’t know is his contribution to Sri Lanka’s national anthem. He not only wrote the national anthems for two countries, India and Bangladesh but inspired a Ceylonese student of his to pen and compose one which would become the national anthem of Sri Lanka. This student was Ananda Samarakoon, Tagore’s disciple at Viswa Bharati, the university founded by him in Santiniketan, West Bengal. Influenced by the great poet, Samarakoon went back to his country, then under British rule, and composed the Sri Lankan national anthem, Sri Lanka Matha, originally known as Namo Namo Matha. His composition was exactly in the Rabindra sangeet (Tagore song) style. Some even credit Tagore for having composed the music. 

The anthem was first performed in 1949 at the Independence Memorial Hall in Torrington Square in Sri Lanka but was given full constitutional recognition only in 1978.