Iconography of the Recently Discovered Naga Sculptures from Pamba River Basin, Pathanamthitta District, South Kerala Ambily C.S. 1 , Ajit Kumar 2 and Vinod Pancharath 3 1 . Excavation Branch II, Archaeological survey of India, Purana Qila, New Delhi – 110001, India (Email: ambilyananova@gmail.com) 2 . Department of Archaeology, University of Kerala, Kariavattom Campus, Thiruvananthapuram - 695581, Kerala, India (Email: ajitkumarku@gmail.com) 3 . Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (Email: vinodpancharath@gmail.com) Received: 25 September 2015; Accepted: 18 October 2015; Revised: 09 November 2015 Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 3 (2015): 618-634 Abstract: Recent exploration by the first author brought to light interesting Naga sculptures from the middle ranges of Pamba River basin. All the sculptures are made out of granite and can be classified into Nagarajas and Nagayakshis except one which is a female naga devotee. This paper tries to briefly discuss the iconography, chronology and significance of the sculptures. Keywords: Exploration, Pamba River Basin, Kerala, Nagarajas, Nagayakshis, Iconography, Chronology Introduction Pamba is one of the important and third longest rivers in Kerala. It is apparently the river Baris/Bans mentioned in records of Pliny (Menon 1967-62). It originates from Pulachimalai hill in Peermade plateau at an altitude of 1650 MSL and has a length of 176km. It flows through Idukki, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha districts and finally empties into the Vembanadu Lake. During medieval period Pamba basin harbored prosperous settlement like Kaviyur, Thiruvanmandoor, Perunnayil and Thiruvalla. Naga and yakshi images have earlier been reported from Niranam-Tiruvalla area (Mathew 2006). The present discoveries add to the list of known images. While the earlier discovered images from the lower reaches of Pamba, four of these discovered sites are from the higher hilly and forested tracts of Pathanamthitta district in Pamba basin. Stylistically these images divulge early features and indicate that these forested tracts were inhabited at least from the 12 th -13 th centuries. Ten female and six male naga sculptures were discovered from the exploration (Fig. 1). These are found in localities of Kurichy, Allumkal-Kattathippara, Appoppankavu,