Princess Uttarā of Matsya kingdom

In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Uttarā or Anglicized as Uttara (उत्तरा) was the daughter of King Virata, at whose court the Pandavas spent a year in concealment during their exile. She was the sister of Uttara.[1] It is also believed that Uttara had learnt dance from Arjuna as a princess during the 13th year of exile of the Pandavas in Virata's kingdom when Arjuna lived a life of a eunuch and practised his art of dance learnt from the apsaras in heavens. Once King Virata realized that the teacher is the great Pandava Prince Arjuna himself whose archery skills were widely known to all, he immediately proposed to offer his daughter Uttara to Arjuna. However it was the composed mind of Arjuna to explain to King Virata the doting realtionhip that a teacher has with his / her student that makes the relationship that of a parent and child and he always looked upon Uttara as a child and suggested instead her hand in marriage to Abhimanuy his son. Uttara married Arjuna's son Abhimanyu. She was widowed at a very young age when Abhimanyu was killed in the Kurukshetra war. When Abhimanyu died, Uttara tried to burn herself on the pyre of Abhimanyu but Krishna stopped her from doing so informing her of her pregnancy. Towards the end of the Mahabharata war, Ashwathama, son of Dronacharya, while trying to avenge the defeat of Duryodhana and while performing the role of the newly appointed Commander in chief of the now vanquished army of the Kauravas, engaged in a war with Arjuna. The two greatest archers of their times were pitted for a long time and Arjuna was thwarting each arrow from Ashwathama with few from his inexhaustible quiver. The battle was reaching to a point of no end when a vengeful Ashathama invoked the potent Brahmastra and shot an arrow in gross violation of the code of conduct to use such a powerful weapon on mortals, when Krishna intervened and made the rishiputra realize his folly. Regretful and a tired Ashwathama realized his folly and was repentant, at which, Krishna offered a solution resulting in limited damage by making the weapon kill the, foetus form of Parikshit, while in Uttara's womb (to be later revived by Krishna himself, and later who would turn into the famous King Parikshit) and as a repentance, made Ashwathama lose his source of power, the jewel that adorned his shining forehead. This loss of the jewel that adorned his forehead made Ashwathama lose his state of mental alertness and was forced to retire to obscurity as a derelict in the forests. Uttara's son, Parikshit, was the sole surviving dynasty of the Kuru clan and eventually became king of Hastinapura.