Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna learnt about warfare when he was in mother’s womb. Abhimanyu, the boy warrior learned the art of penetrating the complex military formation known as the lotus array (padma vyūha) in his mother Subhadra’s womb, while Arjuna was explaining it.

Subhadra dozed off while the discussion was going on, but Abhimanyu in her womb was quite alert. Knowing the child’s destiny, Krishna took Arjuna away on some pretext before he had explained the exit strategy. So, Abhimanyu never got to learn how to get out of the formation unharmed. Abhimanyu’s story tells us how alert the fetuses are even when the mothers are in the sleep mode, and how they sponge any and all information that they hear around them.