More than five Istari?
 

In UT it said that the number of the Istari is unknown, but that Five were considered chief among them--or at least important. I find it interesting that Tolkien would say that the number of the Istari is unknown--he never seemed to say something without it having some meaning.

What do you take from this? Do you believe there was perhaps more than the chief Five, perhaps other Istari sent on other missions--that Gandalf and his order might not even have been aware of?

I mean, it is said the Blue Wizards, for example, might have been just as important to the victory against Sauron in the East, as Gandalf was in the West, yet we know little of them except that they were clad in blue.

Could it not also be possible that Valar elected to send more than Five, perhaps on sub-missions or with missions of a slightly different character than Gandalf, Radaghast, Saruman and Allatar and Pallando, and we simply don't know of them because their activities and mission were not in the main 'theater' of the War?

I think it just means that there were others we are not told of, like the many unknown Maia we're told exist who're never really brought to light except with reference to their existence. Istari were another order of Maia who were lesser than spirits like Sauron.

I would lean toward the idea that there were only five. In The Two Towers, my recollection is that Saruman speaks of the "rods of the five wizards", which would seem to be a curious remark if there were more than five.

I have always found the remark in the Unfinished Tales to be very imagination-stirring in regards to this aspect. Just to quote it, for the purpose of debate for easy referrence:

Which, of course, can be interpreted either way, but it does not rule out the presence of some other "southern Wizards" in, say, Harad and so on. However, given what fate the five in the North met - only one, effectively, remaining fully true to his task - and given that we don't hear anything about any, say, amazing revolution against Sauron in Harad, we can pretty safely assume that if there were any other Istari elsewhere, they were much less successful, probably easily overwhelmed by the servants of the Enemy, if not outright corrupted.

It is true, of course, that while we have an account of the selection of the Five Istari, there is nothing about any others. Of course, they may have been chosen later and so on... And it is quite likely that the uncertainity just reflects the "general knowledge" of an average loremaster in Middle-Earth: the Order was pretty obscure for "mortals", even from retrospect.

But all that said, it still opens interesting possibilities.

Also, in regards to what Inzil said, a bit of polemic - Saruman's remark about the Five rods of course would imply that there were only five, but then again, Saruman may be speaking only in his own cultural context; after all, if there were for example other five Istari operating somewhere in Far Harad, there was probably no way Saruman would even have any news concerning them in the first place, let alone assume someone to get hold of their rods.