ally regarded as the field for performing
karma, whereas other worlds are regarded as places where the
fruits of karma are reaped by those born as celestial beings. But
there is no emphasis in the Upani@sads on this point. The Pit@ryana
theory is not indeed given up, but it seems only to form a part
in the larger scheme of rebirth in other worlds and sometimes in
this world too. All the course of these rebirths is effected by the
self itself by its own desires, and if it ceases to desire, it suffers no
rebirth and becomes immortal. The most distinctive feature of
this doctrine is this, that it refers to desires as the cause of rebirth
and not karma. Karma only comes as the connecting link between
desires and rebirth--for it is said that whatever a man desires he
wills, and whatever he wills he acts.

Thus it is said in another place "he who knowingly desires is
born by his desires in those places (accordingly), but for him whose
desires have been fulfilled and who has realized himself, all his
desires vanish here" (Mu@n@d III. 2. 2). This destruction of desires
is effected by the right knowledge of the self. "He who knows

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his self as 'I am the person' for what wish and for what desire
will he trouble the body,...even being here if we know it, well if
we do not, what a great destruction" (B@rh. IV. iv. 12 and 14). "In
former times the wise men did not desire sons, thinking what
shall we do with sons since this our self is the universe" (B@rh. IV.
iv. 22). None of the complexities of the karma doctrine which
we find later on in more recent developments of Hindu thought
can be found in the Upani@sads. The whole scheme is worked
out on the principle of desire (_kama_) and karma only serves as
the link between it and the actual effects desired and willed by
the person.

It is interesting to note in this connection that consistently
with the idea that desires (_kama_) led to rebirth, we find that
in some Upani@sads the discharge of the semen in the womb of a
woman as a result of desires is considered as the first birth of
man, and the birth of the son as the second birth and the birth
elsewhere after death is regarded as the third birth. Thus it is
said, "It is in man that there comes first the embryo, which is
but the semen which is produced as the essence of all parts of
his body and which holds itself within itself, and when it is put
in a woman, that is his first birth. That embryo then becomes
part of the wom