Scientific name

Sus scrofa cristatus Linn

Common name

Indian wild boar

Hindi

Suar

Sanskrit 

Varah

Distribution

Throughout India

Religious association

Varaha Temple, Khajrauho

Varaha is the third of the ten incarnations of Vishnu. In coastal Maharashtra, the boar is worshipped on the first four days of the Ganesha festival, when no boars are to be killed or driven away from the fields.

According to Buddhist beliefs the Goddess of the Dawn-Marichi drives a chariot drawn by seven boars. The emblem of the thirteenth Tirthankara Vimalanatha is a boar.