Uttarā (Sanskrit: उत्तरा, romanized: Uttarā) is a character in the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata. She was the princess of Matsya, and the daughter of King Virata and Queen Sudeshna, at whose court the Pandavas—the central figures of the epic—spent a year in concealment during their exile. During this period, she learned music and dance from Arjuna, the third Pandava, and later married his son, Abhimanyu. Uttarā was widowed at a young age during the Kurukshetra War. Following the Pandavas' victory in the war, she and her unborn son were attacked by Ashwatthama, and were saved by the divine intervention of Krishna. Her son Parikshit saved the Kuru lineage from extinction, and became a well-known monarch celebrated in both the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana.

The Sanskrit name Uttarā is derived from the word Uttara by adding a feminine termination ā. It can have multiple meanings; according to British Indologist Monier Williams, in this context, it means 'upper,' 'higher,' 'superior,' or 'excellent'. The word is also used to denote the 'North direction', as well as 'an answer'. The male form of the name also appears in the Mahabharata as the name of her elder brother.

Uttarā is a significant character in the Mahabharata, one of the Sanskrit epics from the Indian subcontinent. The work is written in Classical Sanskrit and is a composite work of revisions, editing and interpolations over many centuries. The oldest parts in the surviving version of the text may date to near 400 BCE.

The Mahabharata manuscripts exist in numerous versions, wherein the specifics and details of major characters and episodes vary, often significantly. Except for the sections containing the Bhagavad Gita which is remarkably consistent between the numerous manuscripts, the rest of the epic exists in many versions. The differences between the Northern and Southern recensions are particularly significant, with the Southern manuscripts more profuse and longer. Scholars have attempted to construct a critical edition, relying mostly on a study of the "Bombay" edition, the "Poona" edition, the "Calcutta" edition and the "south Indian" editions of the manuscripts. The most accepted version is one prepared by scholars led by Vishnu Sukthankar at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, preserved at Kyoto University, Cambridge University and various Indian universities.

Uttarā also appears in few of the later written Puranic scriptures, most prominent being the Krishna-related Bhagavata Purana.

According to the Mahabharata, Uttarā was born to Virata, the king of Matsya Kingdom, and his consort Sudeshna, the daughter of Suta king of Kekaya. She had two elder brothers—Uttara and Shankha—and a half sibling Shveta.

Uttarā is introduced into the main narrative in the Virata Parva, the fourth book of the epic, which narrates about the last year of the exile of the five Pandava brothers and their common wife Draupadi, which they had to spend in anonymity. They stayed together in the Matsya and took various disguises in the court of Virata. The third Pandava Arjuna lived as a eunuch named Brihannala, and was appointed as the tutor of Uttarā, teaching her the skills of dance, instrumental and vocal music that he had learned from the apsaras in heaven. Uttarā is praised by Arjuna for being exceptionally talented. After the end of their exile, the Pandavas revealed their real identities to Virata. Virata immediately offered Uttarā's hand in marriage to Arjuna, but he refused, reasoning that the relation a teacher has with a student is like that of a parent to a child. Instead, Arjuna suggested that Uttarā become his daughter-in-law by marrying his son Abhimanyu. With approval from both sides, the marriage ceremony of Uttarā and Abhimanyu was held in the city of Upaplavya in presence of their relatives and allies. While residing in Upaplavya, the Pandavas were approached by a poor brahmin who, upon seeing Uttarā, prophesied that she would give birth to a son when the Kuru dynasty ends and for that reason he would be called Parikshit (lit. 'One who has been tested')."

The next few parvas (books) of the Mahabharata describes the Kurukshetra War fought between the Pandavas and their cousins Kauravas, in which Matsya allied with the Pandavas. Uttarā lost her father, brothers and entire Matsya army in the course of the war. She was also widowed at a very young age when Abhimanyu, himself only sixteen years old, was killed in the war. Overwhelmed with grief at the sight of her husband's body, she was consoled by her uncle-in-law and the divine avatara Krishna. Her grief and lamentation on seeing her husband's corpse is again illustrated in the Stri Parva by Gandhari, the mother of Kauravas.