Do you have experience of using yogic or tantric worldviews or practices to engage with your menstrual cycle? We invite you to contribute to a research project on menstruation management within South Asian-inspired spiritual or religious settings.

This research project explores the experiences of yoga and tantra practitioners on menstruation. Menstruation is understood and interacted with in various ways in different yoga and tantric communities—at times approached as a spiritual opportunity, sometimes regulated by social and religious constraints, at times harmonised by mind-body techniques, and sometimes stopped (amenorrhea) by these techniques and processes. This project combines participant interviews with textual analysis to bridge historical perspectives with contemporary lived religious practice.

Menstruation-management has a profound impact on people’s lives. Many yoga and tantra schools and teachers have a lot to say about menstruation, but the experience of menstruators has not so far been foregrounded. Your inputs will contribute to practitioner-facing studies and academic publications that extend our understanding of menstruation and amenorrhea.

Are you over 18 years old? Do you have experience with menstruation management in yoga, tantra, or South Asian religious traditions? Would you fill in an online questionnaire? Would you be willing to do a follow-up interview online or in-person? Your contribution will be de-identified in project outputs unless you give explicit consent to be named.

Your privacy matters. Participation involves a confidential questionnaire about your personal experiences. Some participants will be asked if they would like to do a confidential online or in-person interview. A detailed information sheet explaining confidentiality and data protection is available on this page or email Ruth (ruthwestoby[at]gmail.com). Making an enquiry creates no obligation to participate in the research. This project has been reviewed and approved by Inform’s Management Committee.

The research project on menstruation management in yoga and tantra sits alongside a research project on menstruation in Jainism. This research project, directed by Ruth at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, aims to collect and analyse the experiences of Jains on religious bodily practices. Jainism, with its emphasis on non-violence (ahiṃsā) and purification of the self (jīva), offers distinct bodily practices oriented towards cultivation, control and liberation from the body. Important bodily practices include worship, singing, mantra, study, yoga, meditation and fasting. This project focus on such ‘technologies of the body’ that are based on ideas and beliefs about reproduction and non-reproduction, and bodily practices motivated by celibacy and menstruation management. The objective of this project is to conduct participant interviews with Jain practitioners or practitioners inspired by Jainism, whether renunciant or lay, male, female or third gender, and whether current or former practitioners. These discussions will be analysed alongside Jain texts instructing and theorising bodily practices. By combining textual analysis with participant interviews this project aims to bridge historical perspectives with current practices, offering a comprehensive view of Jain approaches to bodily control and liberation. This research project has been reviewed by Oxford University's Central University Research Ethics Committee (CUREC) and been approved with the reference number P01166/RE001. Please see https://ochs.org.uk/jaina-studies/ for more information.

Please fill in the online questionnaire on the link button below in order to contribute to these research projects. This questionnaire is designed to collect responses for both research projects on menstruation in yoga and tantra, and menstruation in Jainism.

Please use the anonymous form below to send comments directly to the researcher. Your details will not be retained. If you would like to be contacted then please provide an email address or phone number.