96 Beginnings of Porcelain 



by traders." 1 It is evident beyond cavil that I-tsing understands 

 the word ts x e in this passage in the sense of porcelain with which he 

 was familiar in his native country. He could most assuredly not mean 

 to say that pottery was originally unknown in India, for in more than 

 one case he himself refers to Indian pottery or earthenware {wa 3L), 

 which could not escape the attention of a keen observer like him. 

 He expressly avails himself of the word ts'e in this passage, advisedly 

 in contradistinction to the word wa used previously, and connects it 

 with another characteristic product through which China then became 

 widely known, — lacquer. He does not state explicitly that porcelain, 

 in the same manner as lacquer-ware, was then imported from China 

 into India; but this fact may be inferred from the statement made in 

 the beginning of Chapter VI, that "earthenware and porcelain (wa ts'e 

 Jl iu) are used for the clean jar" (that is, the jar containing the water 

 for drinking-purposes). 2 This passage is sufficient evidence for the 

 fact that porcelain was then found in India; and also his statement 

 that porcelain did not originally exist in India seems to imply that it 

 occurred there at the time of the author's visit. He does not speak 

 of porcelain as a new, but as a familiar, production; and he must 

 certainly have seen it in China before the year 671, the date of his 

 departure for India. Judging from I-tsing's memoirs, porcelain, accord- 

 ingly, must have existed in China during the latter half of the seventh 

 century. At the same time, it was exported into India; and this 

 harmonizes with the observation made in the T'ao shuo, that porcelain 

 bowls were widely distributed abroad from the time of the T'ang 

 dynasty (618-906). 8 



The testimony of the Arabic merchant Soleyman, who in 851 wrote 

 his "Chain of Chronicles," must be regarded as one of the most 

 weighty to prove the existence in China of true porcelain in the 

 age of the T'ang, during the ninth century. In the translation of 



1 J. Takakusu, A Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India by 

 I-tsing, p. 36 (Oxford, 1896); Japanese edition of the text, Vol. I, p. 17 a. 



2 L.c, p. 27; text, Vol. I, p. 12 a. 



1 T'ao shuo, Ch. 5, p. 2 b (edition with movable types, published 1913); S. W. 

 Bushell, Description of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, p. 104. — According to 

 W. Crooke (Natives of Northern India, p. 136, London, 1907), common clay pots, 

 owing to their perishable character, are little valued in India, "and caste prejudices 

 prevent the use of the finer kinds of pottery. Hence no artistic industry like that 

 of china has flourished in India, although kaolin and other suitable kinds of clay are 

 in some places abundant." We have a formal judgment on Indian pottery from 

 the Buddhist monk Yuan Ying, who in his Yi ts'ie king yin i (Ch. 18, p. 7; see p. 115), 

 written about a.d. 649, remarks that the state of culture is so low in the Western 

 Regions that finer pottery cannot be made there, and that only unburnt bricks 

 and vessels fired without glaze are turned out. 



