The Buffalo.
The respect paid to the cow does not fully extend to the buffalo. The buffalo is the vehicle of Yama, the god of death. The female buffalo is in Western India regarded as the incarnation of Savitrî, wife of Brahma, the Creator. Durgâ or Bhavânî killed the buffalo-shaped Asura Mahisa, Mahisâsura, after whom Maisûr is called. According to the legend as told in the Mârkandeya Purâna, Ditî, having lost all her sons, the Asuras, in the fight with the gods, turned herself into a buffalo in order to annihilate them. She underwent such terrible austerities to propitiate Brahma, that the whole world was shaken and the saint Suparsva disturbed at his devotions. He cursed Ditî that her son should be in the shape of a buffalo, but Brahma so far mitigated the curse that only his head was to be that of a buffalo. This was Mahisâsura, who ill-treated the gods, until they appealed to Vishnu and Siva, who jointly produced a lovely representation of a Bhavânî, the Mahisâsurmardanî, who slew the monster. This Mahisâsura is supposed to be the origin of the godling Mahasoba, worshipped in Western India in the form of a rude stone covered with red lead.
Another of these buffalo demons is Dundubhi, “he that roars like the sound of the kettle-drum,” who in the Râmâyana bursts with his horns the cavern of Bali, son of Indra and king of monkeys. Bali seized him by the horns and dashed him to pieces. The comparative mythologists regard him as one of the forms of the cloud monster the sun.[102]
Sadasiva, one of the forms of Mahâdeva, took the form of a buffalo to escape the Pândavas, and sank into the ground at Kedârnâth. The upper portion of his body is said to have come to the surface at Mukhâr Bind in Nepâl, where he is worshipped as Pasupatinâtha. When the Pândavas were freed from their guilt, they in their gratitude built five temples in honour of the hinder parts of the deity, which are now known as the Pânch Kedâr-Kedarnâth, Madhya Maheswar, Rudranâth, Tungunâth, and Kalpeswar.
The buffalo is constantly sacrificed at shrines in honour of Durgâ Devî. The Toda worship of the buffalo is familiar to all students of Indian ethnology.