ghee ［醍醐味］ ( daigo-mi): The finest clarified butter, or the last of the five flavors (milk, cream, curdled milk, butter, and ghee), the stages in the process by which milk is made into ghee. The five flavors are compared to the five levels of Buddhist teachings, and the word ghee is used to indicate the fifth and highest level of teaching, or the supreme teaching. In his doctrine of the five periods, T’ien-t’ai (538–597) used ghee as a metaphor for the period of the Lotus and Nirvana sutras, defining the Lotus Sutra as the highest of all the sutras.