Abhimanyu

Abhimanyu in his previous birth was known as Abhikasura a demon. He was a friend of King Kans who left no stone unturned to kill his nephew Krishna. After Krishna killed Kans, Abhikasura vowed to take revenge on the former. Krishna, sensing the moves of the demon, wove a magic around Abhikasura, transformed him into an insect and captured him in a box.

When Krishna’s sister Subhadra, after her wedding with Arjuna, accidentally opened the box, the insect got into her womb. Abhikasura was then born as Abhimanyu.
Krishna knew this and he rather sadly, prepared the ground for the death of his nephew and finally got him entrapped in Padmavyuha.

Abhimanyu is a key personality featured in the epic Mahabharata. The son of Arjuna and Subhadra, half-sister of Lord Krishna, Abhimanyu was an unparalleled archer considered equal to his father in prowess with the bow and arrow.

As an unborn child in his mother’s womb, Abhimanyu learned the knowledge of entering the deadly and virtually impenetrable Chakravyuha from Arjuna. The Mahabharata explains that from the womb, Abhimanyu overheard Arjuna talking about this with his mother Subhadra. Arjuna explained to Subhadra in detail the technique of attacking and escaping from various vyoohs (an array of army formation) such as Makaravyoha, Kurmavyooha, Sarpavyuha, etc. 

After explaining all the vyoohs, he explained about the technique of cracking Chakravyuha, and entering it. When he was about to explain how to exit from the Chakravyuha, he realises that Subadra was asleep and stopped explaining about the Chakravyuha further. In return, the baby Abhimanyu in the womb did not get a chance to learn how to come out of it.


When Arjuna was mourning the death of his son and squarely blamed Krishna for it, it was then Krishna explained Abhikasura’s reincarnation as Abhimanyu and the necessity for him, as the Supreme Power, to incinerate the evil force.

Karna saw Arjuna in Abhimanyu, by murdering him he wanted to have the vicarious pleasure of slaughtering Arjuna

Thus his righteous self is over powered by ignoble self , which seeks revenge,  which wants to make Arjuna feel miserable and this makes Karna the noble man do all the ignoble things to his own nephew*

Even during Draupadi's insult , Karna would have seen Draupadi as Arjuna's wife , the woman who chose Arjuna over him, again his Ugly self over powers his righteous self and leads to the events that follows.