Uva Wellassa Rebellion of 1817/1818 and Monarawila Keppetipola Memorial

The Monarawila Keppetipola memorial stands in the Maha Maluwa, the esplanade beside Kandy's historic city precinct, commemorating a leading figure of the Uva–Wellassa Rebellion of 1817–1818. Keppetipola Disawe, a regional governor under British colonial administration, was sent to suppress the uprising in Uva. Instead he joined it, ordering the regiment under his command to stand down.

Born in Udugoda, in the Udasiya Pattuwa of Matale, in the Kingdom of Kandy, Keppetipola was appointed Maha Adhikaram — chief minister — under Wilbawe, the pretender-king the rebels had raised. He led the rebellion's military campaign, including a siege of Fort MacDonald over February and March 1818 with a force reported at five to six thousand. He was captured on 28 October 1818 by Captain O'Neil, assisted by Lieutenant Cader-Boyet.

Tried in Kandy for high treason, he was executed by beheading on 25 November 1818, at the Bogambara grounds. Tradition holds that he asked to be reborn in the Himalayas and attain Nirvana, and requested a single stroke of the sword; the executioner is said to have needed two. His skull was taken to Britain and examined by the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh before being returned to Ceylon in 1954, to be entombed at the memorial that now bears his name.