Cultivating a feminist framework for research design: Presenting an epistemological framework for female herstories that honours qualitative theory.

Ascetic Princess with Snakes in a Wilderness: from a Ragamala.
Gum tempera and gold on paper | 25.8 x 18.2cm | c. 1650 

From: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2018.190

Ardhanarishvara- gold & silver on paper, ca. 18th century, Mankot, Pahari school (India). Source: San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego.

From: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/ardhanarishvara-androgynous-portrayal-of-shiva-and-parvati/

Woman writing letter.
10th Century A.D ( 1000 Years Old )
Sandstone, c. 950-1050 AD
Chandela Dynasty, Khajuraho

From: The Arts of India: From Prehistoric to Modern times by Ajit Mookerjee (1966), Page 100.

My research project incorporates a feminist methodology to document the historiography of Kundalini awakenings in the UK. In my view, lived experience provides a fluid approach in collecting nuanced data such as oral histories, visual culture and folk songs. This aligns with my interest in Pupul Jayakar's research in Southern India, where craft and dialogical knowledge inform the central part of female histories held within community circles. Shaped by local contexts, craft and creativity; the divine feminine is expressed through drawings and tapestries that symbolise the yantra iconography—pertinent to Sakta cults and Kundalini narratives.
 
In the Tantras compendium, the deity Sakti is associated with reproduction and power. She is known as the creative catalysis for Kundalini, yet, strangely, a female writer (outside the West) has not discussed their experiences of Kundalini awakening through textual scholarship—other than the 14th Century Kashmiri Saiva Poetess—Lalla Ded. Similarly, some of the Ragamala paintings (16th century) depict ascetic Princess Asvari Ragini, escaping royal duties to charm snakes in the wildness. However, there is no solid example of the Kundalini experience written from a female point of view. Therefore, my motivating questions for this project are: What is it about this tantric experience of Kundalini that is censored for women? How has it affected their alchemy and journey? Is this to do with a socio-political lack of female authors publishing? Or, is there a specific reason more inclined toward a spiritual intention and transmission of the doctrine?
 
As I start to unpack some of these complexities, my research design will follow a feminist, transformative design rooted in Indigenous Theory (Sylvia Marcos- on Orality) and "Felt Scholarship"[1]. Through Million's concept of "felt theory"[2], these frameworks validate sensory knowledge. Marcos embeds Nahua[3] thought to discuss gender relations through Mesoamerican spirituality, which does not binarise male and female principles. Instead, it champions the fluxing, transformative aspect of gender in relation to Nahua cosmology. She writes in Taken from the Lips (2006):
 
…to be relevant to the Mesoamerican universe, gender must be freed from assumptions of fixed dichotomous characteristics grounded on anatomical distinctions, "a commonplace of the modern European intellectual tradition," according to Rosemary Joyce (2000, p. 7). Gender relations in Mesoamerica are much more than that. They are embedded in cultural settings and shaped by local contexts. Accordingly, gender constructions are closely related to concepts of duality. Gender was nothing less than a root metaphor for everything existing in the cosmos and in society.[4]
 
Through this non-dual lens (also inherent to Saiva philosophy), Marcos' stance reflects the Eastern philosophical view of temporality and oneness between objects, people and the universe. Marcos defines gender as all connecting and transformative. We witness this in the construction of the third gender within Hindu Tantrism; the deity Ardhanarishvara who embodies both masculine and feminine energies, combines both Sakti and Siva. Similarly, in the cultural tradition of Vaishnava cults in Bengal, yogi’s imitate female practitioners in order to experience the full bliss of Vishnu, as Khanna explains in Paradigms of Female Embodiment, (2007):
 
The practitioner would position himself as female, adorned with a sari of specific colour and adornments through the identification of his feminine manjari body”.[5]
Androgyny and cosmology inform different parts of Saivism. When the yogi’s body connects with the deity; the subtle body vibrates, contracts, and expands, forming multiple subjectivities. Some describe this as possession, and others believe it is the body becoming divinised. In the Netra-tantra(7-8th Century CE), written by Kshemaraja, the Trika, threefold experience occurs during meditation when the three inner channels of the body and the three eyes of the practitioner are activated in tandem with the three luminaries. For example, the left eye corresponds to the moon and left channel; the third eye connects to fire and the central channel; the right eye is connected to the sun and the right channel. As Kundalini (or ‘Kundala’), ascends through the central channel, it pierces each knot from the base (Mudladhara) to the 7th energy centre. The yogi assimilates the energies of Siva and Sakti and runs the Spanda vibration upwards to their crown. As a result, Sakti and Shiva reunite, and the yogi experiences bliss, otherwise known as Samadhi (liberation). Within these Macro and Micro layers of consciousness, deities and elements are constantly in flux and serves different functions depending on the practitioner’s intention. For this reason, European gender politics lacks the depth of understanding the multiplicity of gender as interrelated parts of cosmology. It can only go as far as to distinguish anatomical differences between male and female principles, rather than providing multiple expressions of gender that overlap.

With the transformative aim of bringing Kundalini to contemporary culture, my research will provide a socio-historical context for how this energy has affected female bodies through textual and sensory analysis. By doing so, my collaborative approach minimises the divide between subject and researcher[6], whilst tackling issues around Andro-centrism through alternative, feminist and indigenous research strategies. I will collect participants' accounts of their Kundalini experiences through interviews and conduct my autoethnographic research where my body will act as a vessel for the Kundalini energy to pass through in my Kriya practice. The energy permeates through the hands (mudras), upper body, the abdomen (Kumbhaka) and manifests in various yogic postures (asanas), depending on where the chakras needs to unblock. Ethical implications may apply, such as: lack of anonymity, bringing sacred aspects of Kundalini into the public sphere—and exposing this mystical experience in an artificial light. Some may argue that this practice should be a lived experience, rather than deconstructed in an institutional setting. However, my transformative approach aims to bring the history of female Kundalini awakenings to the forefront of mainstream culture. I will focus on the Spandakarika doctrine (9th Century), which describes vibrational metaphysics, the chakras and the subtle body in Kashmir Saivism. I will also look at contemporary South Asian tantric scholars: Madhu Khanna, Pupul Jayakar, and Veena Poonacha; the Kashmiri mystic and poetess, Lalla Ded; and embodiment practitioners; Peggy Phelan and Ben Spatz—and finally, closing out with film theorists: Rony and Trinh T Minh. 
 
[1] Million, “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History,”53.
[2] Million, “Felt Theory,” 54.
[3] Marcos, Taken from the Lips: Gender and Eros in Mesoamerican Religions, 32.
[4] Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 14-15.
[5] Khanna, Some Paradigms of Female Embodiment in the Hindu World, 21-22.
[6] Poonacha, “Recovering Women’s Histories: An Enquiry into Methodological Questions and Challenges,” 396.


Bibliography:
Primary:
Khanna, Madhu. Some Paradigms of Female Embodiment in the Hindu World. New Delhi: IGNCA, 2007.
Marcos, Sylvia. Taken from the Lips: Gender and Eros in Mesoamerican Religions. Netherlands: Brill Publications, 2006.
Million, Dian. “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History”. Project MUSE, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 53-76.
Poonacha, Veena. “Recovering Women’s Histories: An Enquiry into Methodological Questions and Challenges”. Sage Journals, no. 3 (October 2004): 389-404.