Māyā

Secondly, Jorge Luis Borges who was an Argentinian short narrative writer with a phenomenal intelligence and knowledge. His writings are filled with metaphysical insights and his inventive style merges mathematical concepts into a simple flow of words. In his essay ‘Avatars of the Tortoise’ (the title is obviously enthused from the second avatār – incarnation of Lord Vishnu [16], the kurma or tortoise) that is based on Archimedes’ paradox about the race between the hare and the tortoise Borges concludes :-

It is venturesome to think that a co-ordination of words (philosophies are nothing more than that) can resemble the universe very much. It is also venturesome to think that of all these illustrious co-ordinations, one of them – at least in an infinitesimal way – does not resemble the universe a bit more than the others. I have examined those which enjoy certain prestige; I venture to affirm that only in the one formulated by Schöpenhauer have I recognized some trait of the universe. According to this doctrine, the world is a fabrication of the will. Art – always – requires visible unrealities. Let it suffice for me to mention one : the metaphorical or numerous or carefully accidental diction of the interlocutors in a drama…..Let us admit what all idealists admit : the hallucinatory nature of the world. Let us do what no idealist has done : seek unrealities which confirm that nature. We shall find them, I believe, in the antimonies of Kant and in the dialectic of Zeno.[17]