A widespread instance of numerical correspondence, rooted in Chinese thought and developed in esoteric Buddhism, involves correlations of fives: the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) are equated with the five directions (east, south, center, west, and north); the five planets; the five virtues (benevolence, propriety, good faith, righteousness, and wisdom); the five colors; the major five organs of the human body; and so forth. In esoteric Buddhism, these pentads are further equated with the five great elements (earth, water, fire, wind, and space) and the five Buddhas, and in medieval Tendai, they are assimilated to the five tones used in shōmyō chanting or to the five characters myō, hō, ren, ge, and kyō that comprise the tide of the Lotus Sūtra. Such associations reflect underlying assumptions about the oneness of microcosm and macrocosm, and—when assimilated to the episteme informed by esoteric Buddhism—about all phenomena as nondual manifestations of the cosmic Buddha, Mahāvairocana or Dainichi. Such an understanding of the world, assuming an inner unity endlessly refracted in each of its elements, was by no means limited to medieval Japan. A number of scholars have written on the episteme of medieval Europe, in which the world was seen in totalistic fashion as a system of hidden correspondences, upon whose proper recognition and identification rested the practice of such arts as astrology, divination, and magic. (Page 160-161)