Women in Mahabharata - Prabhavati (Sudhanva)
She is the young wife of Sudhanva, the youngest prince of Champapuri.
The king Hamsadhvaja issues an order that any person who is late for their battle against Arjun (after kidnapping Yudhishthira's ashvamedha horse) shall be boiled alive in a vat of oil.
When Sudhanva comes to say goodbye to his mother and sister, Prabhavati catches him on his way back, and fearing for the worst, asks him to sleep with her one last time, even aside from her own romantic feelings, hoping that if she gets pregnant, then she would not be mistreated as much if Sudhanva dies.
Sudhanva reluctantly sleeps with her and consequently reaches the battlefield late. His father, true to his word, without mercy, throws him into the vat of boiling oil, upon the words of his brahmin priests.
Sudhanva then remembers Krishna and is magically saved from a sure death. He is, however, killed by Krishna and Arjun in the battle (after Krishna sacrifies 100% of his accrued punya across avatars, infusing it into Arjun's arrows), and Shiva accepts his decapitated head (after Krishna and Hamsadhvaja play hot-potato with his head) weaves it into his own garland of skulls as a mark of respect for his devotion towards Krishna.
In Sanjaya's Bengali adaptation, Prabhavati gives birth to a boy named Vivek after the death of her husband. This child, as an infant, fights Arjun and Krishna again and renders them unconscious, leading to Subhadra, Rukmini and Krishna's other wives having to enter the battle to save the men.
