Kannan Jalakkiritai serves widely as an introductory play. The fact that it regularly opens in the longer cycles is an indication that the play has a special appeal for the more ambitious temples. The play is not Mahabharata; it enacts the story of Krishna from birth to youth. It stands in a similar relation to the Bharata dramas as the Harivamsa. It has been said that Jalakkiritai is an introduction.
In stressing the complementarities of the epic cycle and the youth of Lord Krishna, the Draupadi cult draws on a widespread South Indian tendency to regard the Mahabharata, the Krishna cycle and the Ramayana as constituting a comprehensive triad of interdependent bhakti lore, each part with its own reciter and authorities both in Sanskrit and the vernaculars. The Bhagavatam, apparently composed in the south in the ninth or tenth century is clearly the Bhagavata Purana`s version of the Krishna cycle that stands closest to the play Jalakkiritai.
As an introduction, Jalakkiritai serves many functions. First, in portraying the carefree and auspicious scenes of Krishna`s childhood, it offers a propitious and light-hearted opening for the dramas, one that stands in marked contrast to the sombre atmosphere of much that is to follow. Moreover, Jalakkiritai`s setting introduces the dramas on another immediate "village" note. Moreover, it was emphasized cannot fully appreciate Krishna`s activities among the Kshatriyas of the Mahabharata without the cowherd introduction.
In this light, the most crucial introductory function of Jalakkirltai is to provide an uproarious theological prelude to Krishna`s epic entanglements. It could hardly be more vividly and forcefully emphasized that it is one and the same Krishna who lends his mystery to these two interdependent settings.
Kannan Jalakkiritai includes Vasudeva`s marriage to Devaki and Rohini; Kamsa`s opposition to Krishna`s birth; the births of Krishna, Balarama, and their sister, Parasakti; the exchange of the babies; the boys` childhood in the "village of the cowherd caste"; the butter theft, Putana, cart-kicking, and dirt-eating episodes; and the taming of Kaliya. Finally everything moves toward the final episode, after which the play is named: Krishna`s "water sports" with the Gopis.
The episode in question depicts Krishna`s theft of the Gopis` sarees. The Gopis, wishing to obtain Krishna`s grace, perform puja to the goddess Gauri and go on a fasting vow to bathe in the Yamuna River.
As an introduction to the Mahabharata, however, it is most significant that the final scene of Jalakkirltai presents Krishna in a vignette that will have a close visual counterpart at the end of the most important drama about Draupadi in the entire epic cycle. In Jalak-kirltai he steals the sarees of the Gopis; in Cutu Tuyilurital, or "Dice Match and Disrobing," he prevents the removal of the sarees of Draupadi.
