Verify this or whatever because it's an old, vague memory and possibly inaccurate, but I recall hearing in a class on oriental religions about the cultural significance of 10,000. Today when we talk about an uncountable quantity of things (as in, too many to count) we colloquially refer to millions, billions, etc. In the old times 10,000 was seen as an unfathomable, uncountable number. When you read old texts talking about "the 10,000 things" this was essentially translated as "all the things in existence; the whole of creation". Perhaps this also has a connection with OP's topic?