The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1451 page)

(‘fierce woman’), but later iconographic traditions usually call her Mahi
suramardini, ‘she who crushed the Buffalo demon’, while in religious contexts she is called Mah
-
Lak
m
.
2
By no means all images depicting a female figure associated with a water-buffalo signify this Goddess or refer to this myth. Among many images, a water-buffalo is the
v
hana
, ‘vehicle’, of the Hindu god
Yama
, the god of death, and in Mah
r
ra we find a goddess Yam
riding on (or killing?) a buffalo.
3
From ancient times until recently, when for economic reasons the custom became curtailed, buffaloes have been killed in Indian villages as part of sacrifices and for the sake of eating their meat.

 
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