Page 269 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Porcelain and its Beginnings 141

the ceramic works at Hsin-p'ing (an old name of Fou-liang) were

founded in the time of the Han dynasty, and had been in con-

stant operation ever since. This is confirmed by T'ang Ying, the

celebrated superintendent of the Imperial potteries, appointed in

1728, who states in his autobiography that the result of his re-
searches shows that porcelain was first made during the Han

dynasty at Ch'ang-nan (Ching-te Chen), in the district of Fou-

liang."

From this and the passages immediately following it is clear
that Bushell at that time leant strongly to the Han theory, which
he had previously discarded, for three reasons,which we shall now
examine. The first rests on the character tz^u. Whether the
character tz^u was coined to designate a new substance in the Han
dynasty is by no means certain. It undoubtedly appears in the
Han dictionary, the Shuo Wen, but with the meagre definition

" pottery ware," ^ and without any further indication of its nature.
The second is based on a passage in the Annals of Fou-liang, which
on examination proves to contain only the general word fao (ware)
and not the character tz'^u at all. The actual passage runs : " The

manufacture of pottery {few) at Hsin-p'ing began in the Han

dynasty. Speaking generally, this pottery was strong, heavy, and

coarse, being fashioned of rich clay with moisture added, after

methods handed down from the ancients." The third invokes

the authority of T'ang Ying, but on reference to the autobiography
of this distinguished ceramist in the Chiang hsi t'ung chih, we again
find reference only to t'ao and not to tz'u, viz. " It {fao) is not the

growth of one day. Research shows that it began in the Han

dynasty and was transmitted through succeeding generations. Its
place (of manufacture) changed (from time to time), but it flourished
at Ch'ang-nan." One obvious place for T'ang's research would
be the Annals of Fou-liang, and I shrewdly suspect that his con-
clusions were based on the very passage quoted above, of which
his words give a clear echo. But in any case, neither passage has
any bearing on the origin of porcelain unless we assume that t'ao
is the same as tz'it, and that both words definitely mean porcelain,

^ SH-til fi'« c/i'/ yeh. The Shuo Wen was compiled by Hsu Sh6n and published

g %first in 120 a.d. The word tz'u
is compounded of the radical wa (a tile, earthen-

ware), and the phonetic IzQ. sjij (second, inferior), and carries no inherent suggestion

of porcelain. If connoting a new material, it may be a name applied specially to

glazed pottery which seems to date from the Han period, or even to stoneware as

opposed to soft earthenware or brick.