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From The rains in poetry and painting, by B.N. Goswamy:

In Kalidasa’s great classic, Kumarasambhava, occurs one of the most celebrated passages of Sanskrit literature, in which the poet traces the journey of the first drops of rain as they fall upon Parvati. The Goddess, as a young maiden mortifying herself to be able to win the hand of her chosen lord, Shiva, remained seated, the poet says, out in the open, in scorching heat, meditating, as always: eyes closed, legs crossed, nearly bare of body. In the course of this long penance, summer approached its end, and clouds started gathering in the sky above, rumbling and beginning to become dark and dense with each passing moment. And then the rain began to fall. Its first drops, the poet says, "lingered a little as they fell upon her eyelashes, trickled down the ridge of her nose, descended to her lower lip, trembled there for a moment, and then, falling upon her firm breasts, broke into countless pieces that, re-grouping, wended their way slowly through the fine folds on her stomach, and came to rest at last in the pit of her navel".

Sensuous, and intensely poetic, as it is, the passage is as much about the onset of rains as it is about the supple grace of Parvati’s body. For, woven into Kalidasa’s description, with great subtlety, are so many of the lakshanas or signs of classical female beauty: large eyes with long eyelashes, sharply ridged nose, a soft and full lower lip, breasts high and firm, three light folds – the trivali – on the stomach, deep, really deep, navel. There are connections here – between nature and man, or woman – that are hard to miss.

Which was one of the very, very few references to trivali that a quick Google brought up. Saw the term in a description of a statue at the Art Institute last night. Ford Free Tuesday, don't'cha know.

Reminded me again that I know entirely too little about the spread of Buddhism from India to the rest of Asia, or how native/local/Hindu/Shinto gods/deities/things you really don't want to invoke unless you know what you're doing were integrated into the pantheon. Um, assuming Buddhism has a pantheon, which I'm not entirely sure it's meant to. . .

And, of course, there were quite a few statues and other representations of Ganesha:

Lord Ganesh has four arms. The four arms represent the four inner equipments of the subtle body, namely mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), ego (aharnkar) and conditioned consciousness {chitta). Lord Ganesh represents the pure Consciousness, the Atman which enables these four equipments to function in you. In one hand he holds an axe and in another a rope. The axe symbolises the destruction of all desires and attachments and their consequent agitations and sorrows. The rope is meant to pull the seeker out of his worldly entanglements and bind him to the everlasting and enduring bliss of his own Self. In the third hand he holds a rice ball {modaka). Modaka represents the joyous rewards of spiritual seeking. A seeker gains the joy of satisfaction and contentment as he progresses on the path of spiritual evolution. In the fourth hand he holds a lotus (padma). The lotus represents the supreme goal of human evolution. By holding the lotus in his hand he draws the attention of all seekers to that supreme state that each one of them can aspire for and reach through proper spiritual practices.

Being who and what I am (at the moment, anyway), I immediately focused on the axe. . .

. . . and I suppose the same holds true for how I immediately focused on the trivali on the other statue. . .