Draupadi cult in South Indian Dramas is a heuristic construct. No such monolithic entity really exists. At one and the same festival, there will usually be three performative modes through which the Mahabharata is presented: Piracarikam or Parata Piracankam, "recitation" of the epic in Tamil by a paratiyar; Terukkuttu, or "street drama"; and local ritual enactment. Together they provide a triangulated festival concordance.
The first- two media that are the Piracarikam and Terukkuttu not only present the epic material very differently, but the material they present can vary greatly in content. Every local temple has its own way of performing its ritual cycle, and every paratiyar and every Kuttu troupe presents the epic with idiosyncratic twists. Kuttu performers are professional itinerants, hired by reputation, and almost invariably imported from outside the local communities in which they perform. There is an evident tendency for local temples to seek new faces and circulate the talent, and local communities frequently hire different performers from one festival to the next. When the talent is prestigious and the narratives and dramas go well, the festival is of course enhanced. But the possibilities for different combinations of Mahabharata presentation and interpretation are thus virtually infinite.
Moreover, the paratiyars and dramatists often play major roles in local temple rituals, and they are usually the best sources on ritual connections with the Mahabharata stories. Piracarikam has a classical model in the Kathakalaksepam which is a style of recitation performed in both Tamil and Sanskrit in ritual contexts at large Tamil temples.
Piracarikam is Kathakalaksepam`s "little tradition" counterpart. The two use different modes of musical accompaniment. A paratiyar plays no instrument himself. He recites from an open book set before him and is accompanied by a harmonium player who travels with him. In contrast, the Kathakalaksepam is almost always accompanied rhythmically by the classical drum called the Mridanga while the reciter himself will play small finger cymbals as he is singing. But both styles involve a musical narrative amalgamation of song, musical chant and exegetical prose. At Draupadi festivals, Piracarikam is performed in the daytime while Terukkuttu is performed at night.
The Piracarikam linked to the more "classicist" and antiquarian interests of its performers, and the Kuttu more oriented toward "popular" themes and tastes. For their Parata Piracarikam within the Draupadi cult, the key text is usually Villi, but sometimes the Nallappillai Mahabharata is recited from as well.
It has been said that from the marriage of Draupadi on to the death of Duryodhana, the Piracarikam and Kuttu cover the same span of epic narrative. It must be recognized that there are some temples that hold festivals without all three of these components. There is, of course, always ritual, and usually at least something that passes for Piracarikam. But it is not uncommon to find festivals without Terukkuttu. Usually the absence of one genre or the other occurs either because the temple cannot raise sufficient funds to pay the performers, or because it lies outside the area where the performers normally circulate: that is, the core area of the cult.
Festivals with eighteen (or more) days of Kuttu may set them in a span of anywhere from twenty (Marutatu) to fifty-five (Tindivanam) days of Piracarikam. And festivals with eighteen days of Piracarikam have been found to bring them to culmination with anywhere from five to ten nights of Kuttu.
Finally it can be concluded saying that in the south Indian dramas the tradition of Draupadi cult is very prominent. Most of the stage performances focus on the stories of Draupadi.
