Stories Behind Names of Places in Sri Lanka How places in Sri Lanka got their names – KEKIRAWA – By Dr. Nimal Sedera
Source : Dæhæna – February 2025
Kekirawa divisional secretariat is a famous place located in the Central Province of Sri Lanka with a population of 95,000 people. It is rich with several landmark icons of the nation, Aukana Budda statue, Kala Wewa, Namal Uyana and the Ritigala mountain range among them. During the Anuradhapura Kingdom it was a less populated period, very thinly populated, and was mostly into the dry zone oriented vegetable cultivation and had no specific name. Even today, Kekirawa is a key place that produces Sri Lankan dry zone vegetables, such as Pumpkin, Bandakka, cucumber and long beans “Mekaral”. How the name “Kekirawa” came into being is linked to the rural vegetable cultivation in this area,” හේන් හ ොවිතැන ” the non irrigated vegetable cultivation.
“Kekiri” (කැකිරි) is a variety of cucumber still mostly grown in Kekirawa. This variety is supposed to have medicinal values and plays an important role in Ayurveda medicine. Kekiri is believed to be helpful for kidney problems.
Image Source : roycetours
The news of a strange Kekiri creeper in a famer’s land spread in this area and the villagers were coming to see it. One oddity was that it was a huge creeper that covered a large area. The other oddity was that, in one section of it was bearing a huge cucumber of the size of pumpkin and the other section had tiny cucumber of the size of jack seeds. The discussions among the people on this strange creeper of “කැකිරි” resulted in evolving the name “Keikrawa”.
Nimal Sedera
Dr. Nimal Sedera is a journalist, poet, motivational speaker
and an author of over 70 books.
