104 Beginnings or Porcelain 



the use of the word has arisen; "but there is no such confusion in the 

 mind of the Chinese scholar; the purist never uses it; and all arguments 

 as to the date of the origin of porcelain which have been based on the 

 use of this word are valueless." All these statements are erroneous. 

 No one has ever based any arguments on the use of this word as to the 

 date of porcelain. In fact, the word has no concern whatever with the 

 origin of porcelain. The chief facts in the case could already be gleaned 

 from Julien's "Histoire" (p. 29). There is, first of all, a city by the 

 name Ts'e-chou $& #1 , which anciently depended on the prefecture of 

 Chang-te in the province of Ho-nan, but which is now assigned to the 

 prefecture of Kuang-p'ing in the province of Chi-li. The city had 

 formerly various other names. The present name Ts'e $£ was con- 

 ferred on it in the year 590, at the time of the Sui dynasty. Near the 

 boundary of the district rose the Loadstone Mountain (Ts'e shan ^ ill) 

 producing loadstone (ts'e shi $& 3J), whence the district and town 

 received their name. 1 At the time of the T'ang dynasty (618-906), 

 the district produced nothing but loadstone and magnets made from 

 it; it did not produce pottery of any kind. 2 Only from under the Sung 

 (960-1278) did the locality in question embark on the manufacture of 

 a kind of white porcelain, the choice specimens of which resembled the 

 Ting ware. This particular kind of porcelain, because it originated 

 from the locality of Ts'e, was styled "vessels of Ts'e" (Ts'e k'i 6& ^). 

 The word ts'e in this case, accordingly, denotes nothing but the place 

 of provenience. "At present," the author of the "Records of the 

 Potteries of King-te-chen " adds, "owing to a very common error, 

 porcelain vases are generally designated by the term ts'e k'i 6& i>£; 

 people employing this term are doubtless ignorant of the fact that it 

 applies in particular only to the porcelain of the city of Ts'e." The 

 fact remains that under the Manchu dynasty, and at present, porcelain 

 is invariably termed 3§£ and $$$, the latter character being more fre- 

 quently employed.' True it is, that K'ang-hi's Dictionary does not 



1 T'ai p'ing huan yu ki, Ch. 56, p. 10 b. The Pen ts'ao kang tnu extols the 

 loadstone of this locality as excellent (F. de M£ly, Lapidaires chinois, p. 106), 

 and loadstone was supplied from there as tribute to the Court (Ta Ts'ing i t'ung 

 chi, Ch. 31, p. 12). 



2 The silence of the T'ai p'ing huan yu ki and the T'ang Annals in this respect is 

 conclusive, as the localities producing porcelanous ware at that time are expressly 

 named (see above, p. 99). Hobson (Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, Vol. I, p. 101) 

 also arrives at the result that there is no information on the subject of Ts'e-chou 

 factories earlier than the Sung dynasty, when they enjoyed a high reputation. 



1 Even in the T'ang Annals the term ts'e k'i Jtj$|§ appears, although we are not 

 in a position to state that it was thus written in the original edition: the district 

 Ku-lu ^ ^ in Hing-chou (now prefecture of Shun-te in Chi-li Province) sent porce- 

 lain vessels as tribute in the year 742 {T'ang shu, Ch. 39, p. 6); and the fact that 



